


Reality of a New Normal

by alwayslily



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, May Parker Has an Abusive Partner (Spider-Man), Mild Language, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Protective Tony Stark, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, Therapist Sam Wilson, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23924443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayslily/pseuds/alwayslily
Summary: Peter knew that he should be grateful. He had disappeared into nothingness and had no reason to be back, but he was. Tony had saved him. The man had invented time travel to bring back the missing half of the population, and that included Peter. At first, he was grateful to have more time with May and to get to grow up and all that, but once the initial shock wore off, the realities of life were catching up with him and he was beginning to question whether this had been a good thing after all.*this is my take on the 'May's abusive boyfriend' trope*
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man)/Original Male Character(s), Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Sam Wilson, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 254
Kudos: 821





	1. After the Dust Settles

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic so I’m sorry if it is a mess. I also have a comma problem that I am very aware of. Scores of English teachers have tried to fix it to no avail, so we are where we are. 
> 
> Some notes about the reality that I live in:  
> -Tony lives. No other situation exists. We do no watch Endgame in this house, we saw it once in theaters and literally never again because it isn’t real.  
> -Peter is barely fifteen because I like the idea of young Peter trying to be an adult, and time doesn’t actually matter in the MCU as we all know, so I can do absolutely anything that I want.  
> -Tony didn’t sell the Tower either. The Avengers are all living there as one big happy-dysfunctional family. Natasha and Steve included.  
> -Natasha came back with the second snap because I said so.  
> -Steve came back because, as much as he loved Peggy, Bucky is his soulmate and they both deserve their happily ever after.  
> I think those are the important bits. Feel free to comment if I missed anything or there are any confusing gaps!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

Peter knew that he should be grateful. He had disappeared into nothingness and had no reason to be back, but he was. Tony had saved him. The man had invented time travel to bring back the missing half of the population, and that included Peter. At first he was grateful to have more time with May and to get to grow up and all that, but once the initial shock wore off, the realities of life were catching up with him and he was beginning to question wether this had been a good thing after all.

He was trapped in this cycle of memories and trying to adjust to life in the future, but he couldn’t seem to move on. The snap had been excruciating. Nobody else he talked to seemed to remember anything, but Peter could remember the pain so clearly. He woke up at night covered in sweat, feeling like he was dissolving and his body was trying to knit itself back together at the same time. It was unbearable, but Peter never screamed. He didn’t want to wake Aunt May. She had been through enough. She had been left behind and Peter had disappeared and she’d had to mourn her last remaining relative. The guilt of it all was gnawing at Peter and he couldn’t bear the idea of causing her any more pain. She had moved on and built a better life for herself after Peter, and he was determined to ensure that his return was a purely happy thing for her.

She was married. It had probably been the most shocking thing about coming back, to find out that there was another man in her life other than Ben. Peter knew it was selfish, he never wanted May to be alone, but part of him still felt like she was betraying Ben. They had sort of talked about it when he came back, but he still felt queasy every time he thought about it.

Peter’s life before the snap hadn’t been perfect, but it was good. Now his world was falling apart and he didn’t know what to do other than stand back and let it happen.

* * *

The aftermath of the battle was complete chaos. Everyone rushing to take care of Tony - the Wakandan’s, Bruce, Dr. Strange - they had all flocked to Tony’s side and Peter had reluctantly stepped out of the way, knowing that he needed to let them care for his mentor. He had heard the man’s heart stop after he snapped, and when Thor had shocked him to revive him, Peter’s own panic and the volume of the surrounding chaos had made it impossible for him to hear it start again. He knew it had, he’d seen the relief in Pepper’s face when she had felt a pulse and had heard her call out that he was alive, the man had not been conscious when they rushed him off. It was only a moment before Dr. Strange was levitating the man into the air, opening a portal, and disappearing to what Peter assumed was some state of the art hospital or something. Pepper and Bruce were close behind him and Peter wanted to follow them to make sure Tony was okay, but before he could move, Colonel Rhodes put an arm out to stop him.

“Let them take care of him kid. He’s going to be okay, he’s a fighter, but there is nothing you can do right now. Just go get cleaned up and go home. I will let you know if anything changes.” The man had patted him on the shoulder before rushing off to follow the others, the portal closing behind him. Peter didn’t know how they would contact him, they didn’t have his phone number or anything, but there hadn’t been a chance to say anything else to the man. For the matter, Peter didn’t know where his phone was. Come to think of it, he wasn’t completely sure where he was either. He had only been to the compound once before, and Happy had driven him so he hadn’t paid close attention. He knew he was pretty far from the city, but other than that, he was clueless.

Peter didn’t know how long he stood there, helplessly staring at the space that Tony had disappeared. It was Hawkeye who had eventually noticed that he seemed lost and had come over to help. Peter didn’t know the man, other than the brief meeting that they had in Germany, but he was too dazed to really be nervous.

Hawkeye was finishing a phone call himself when he got to Peter and he had tears streaming down his face. He hung up the phone and wiped his face, “My family was dusted, that was my wife. They’re back. Her and the kids. They’re at home and safe,” he explained. Peter understood. He knew what it was like to lose your family and he couldn’t imagine how overwhelming it would feel to have them back. The man offered his phone to Peter and he accepted it hesitantly. Peter didn’t know if Aunt May had been dusted or not but the only thing he could think to do was to call her and try. He was lucky that she and Ben had made him memorize their phone numbers when he was in elementary school, most of his friends wouldn’t have been able to make a call without the address book on their phones. His friends…he couldn’t think about them right now. May first. He dialed with shaking fingers. She picked up on the first ring, panic in her voice.

“Peter?!” her voice trembled and he could hear that she had been crying. He didn’t know how she knew it was him, but he guessed she had seen that people had reappeared and had been waiting to hear from him. “May,” Peter didn’t mean to cry but the moment he heard her voice, he broke down. Hawkeye had put an arm around him and despite the fact that Peter’s only encounter with this man previously had been during a battle and they had been on opposing sides, he was so desperate for some sort of comfort that he found himself melting into the man's arms.

“Where are you,” May asked, after a few moments of them both sobbing into the phone wordlessly.

“I’m at the compound I think, or at least what used to be the compound,” Peter said, looking up to Hawkeye for confirmation. Hawkeye nodded, glancing around at the wreckage with a grim look on his face.

“I don’t know how to get there,” May said, the hysterical tone returning to her voice. “The roads are a mess too. I need to see you, but I can’t get there,” She was quickly descending into panic, her sobs resuming. In the background, Peter could swear he heard a man’s voice comforting her, but he didn’t have the brainpower to contemplate that right now.

Hawkeye had gently pried the phone from his hand. “Ma’am,” he had begun, talking to Aunt May, “My name’s Clint, I am a friend of the spider kid,” Peter looked up at the man questioningly, partially because he hadn’t known his name was Clint, and partially in shock that the man was claiming him as a ‘friend’ after the airport. “Can you let me know your address? I think it would be easiest, and safest, for me to bring Peter to you.” May must have been answering him because the man was nodding. “Okay, that’s great. It may take us a while to get to you, but I am going to bring him straight there.”

Hawkeye, or Clint, since that was his real name, handed the phone back to Peter.

“I love you, Peter, I will see you soon. I love you so much.” May was sobbing again through the phone, and Peter’s tears had subsided from his initial sobs, but they threatened to start again with a vengeance at hearing this. He felt embarrassed but remembered the tears streaming down Clint’s face as he had spoken to his family and reasoned that if Hawkeye could cry then so could Peter.

“I love you too, May. I’ll see you soon.” Peter choked out, and then he ended the call. He took a few deep breathes to compose himself and turned back to Hawkeye.

“You don’t have to take me,” Peter offered, “if you give me her address, I can find my way there I think.”

The man’s face broke into a half-smile as Peter spoke. “If you think I am going to leave an exhausted super-kid to wander the streets of New York in the middle of this chaos, after everything you’ve just been through, then you must not think very highly of me.”

“But your family,” Peter tried to persuade him, “I’m sure they want to see you and you should get to them as soon as you can. You said that you have kids, they deserve to see you.”

“I have kids,” Clint said firmly. “I know what I would want someone else to do for them. I don't care if you are a superhero or what, you're someone's kid. I am taking you home and that’s final.”

Peter nodded, giving up on trying to convince the man otherwise. And really he was grateful for the offer, he wasn’t sure if he could have made it on his own at this point. Now that he had stopped moving and the adrenaline of the battle was wearing off, the sharp pains were returning to his body. For a moment, he was flashing back to Titan, to the dusting and the excruciating pain of disintegrating into nothingness. His body responded to the memory and he felt his knees give out, crumbling to the ground. He would have collapsed completely, but Clint had a firm grip on his elbow and helped keep him upright.

“Whoa, kid. Easy there. Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? I should have asked that first.”

Peter was starting to regain his composure and struggled to make his way back to his feet, with Clint’s help.

“I’m fine,” he offered, though his head was still swimming and Peter realized it probably had something to do with the fact that his last meal had been breakfast the morning of his field trip. With his metabolism, he needed to eat more than the average person and after the multiple battles they had in the past few hours, his body was shutting down on him.

Clint looked at him skeptically. “Are you sure kid, you need to tell me if you’re hurt.” His voice was stern but not uncaring. Peter realized that it was a dad's voice. He hadn’t had anyone speak to him in that tone since Ben, and his heart ached all over again.

Something about that familiarity and concern in the man's voice was prompting him to be a bit more honest. “I’m not physically hurt really, just achy. The dusting, it was excruciating and I am still sore from it. And,” Peter paused, not wanting to be a burden and not sure what he should say. Clint sensed his hesitation and nodded at him to continue, “I have a pretty fast metabolism, I haven’t eaten since this morning. Or the morning that this all started I guess. What day is it?” Peter realized he wasn’t sure how long they had been gone. It felt like it had just been a second, and he was still in pain from the dusting so it couldn’t have been that long.

The color seemed to drain from Clint’s face at Peter’s question. “It’s, uhh,” the man was stuttering, which seemed uncharacteristic of him, though Peter didn’t know him very well so he supposed he didn’t really have any grounds. The hesitancy was making him nervous. “It’s been five years.” Clint sighed and answered the question quietly.

Peter felt his heart stop all over again. It had been five years. He had been gone for five years. It had been a moment in his life and five years in everyone else. What would that mean for him? How old was he then? What had happened to May? To everyone else? To his friends? If they hadn’t been dusted they would be so much older then him. In college he guessed. He felt like he couldn’t breath.

Clint moved directly in front of him, putting a hand on each shoulder and looking him straight in the eye. “Just breathe kid. Don’t try and think about all that right now, just breath.” Peter followed his instructions. The man was taking deep, exaggerated breaths and Peter mimicked him, trying to calm himself down and just let his thoughts focus on the present. He couldn’t handle anything else, so he was just going to breath.

Once he had his breathing under control, Clint had released his shoulders. “You good now?’ He asked.

“Yeah,” Peter responded. He wasn’t totally sure that was true, but then again he wasn’t sure that ‘good’ was even possible right now so he supposed he was as good as he was going to get.

Clint nodded, seemed to understand what Peter was getting. “Let’s find something for you to eat, and maybe a change of clothes, and then we will get you back to your Aunt. It may not be right now, but things will be okay. They’ll get better.” He comforted.

They made their way through the rubble, back to where the compound was still partially standing. Making their way up a set of crumbling stairs, Peter was amazed how intact this side of the compound really was. It was built by Tony, he supposed, and anything that Tony built was bound to be able to endure a few wars.

Tony.

Peter paused at the top of the stairs and let a wave of guilt wash over him. He had put his worry about Tony to the side in the midst of trying to find Aunt May and learning about being gone for five years. Clint noticed his hesitation and correctly guessed at his cause. “He’ll be fine.” Clint placated. “He has the best team of doctors. Helen can do anything.” Peter didn’t know who Helen was, but Clint seemed confident so he accepted the man’s comfort and followed him through the hallways and into what looked like a bedroom.

Peter stood in the doorway while Clint dug around in a chest of drawers, pulling out two sets of sweatpants and two t-shirts. He also disappeared into the closet coming back out a moment later with a pair of flip flops that looked like they were at least two sizes too big for Peter.

“These will probably be a bit big for you, but it’ll be better than the suit.” He gestured toward Peter’s suit. Peter realized he was still wearing the armor that Tony had made for him. He pressed the spider at the center of his chest, hoping it worked the same way that his other suit did, and the nanotech began to crawl across him and into itself. Next thing he knew he was standing in his other suit. He had forgotten that was what he was wearing when Tony had called the suit to him. Clint smirked, seeing that Peter was wearing two suits.

“You really seem committed to the Spider thing, and very prepared. Not even Tony wears two suits.” He teased.

Peter couldn’t help the small smile that quirked across his own face. “It’s a long story.” He offered. “I was wearing the one and Tony somehow summoned the other one to me.” Clint nodded at his explanation, the smile not leaving his face.

Peter hit the spider in the center of his original suit and let it fall away. He accepted the clothes from Clint and put them on, seeing that the other man took the opportunity to change clothes as well. It was amazing how much more alive he felt getting out of the suffocating suits and shedding off some of the layers of dust.

Clint moved over to the bed and rummaged through a side table as well, pulling out a box of granola bars, a bag, and a set of car keys.

He pulled a bar out for himself and tossed the box of granola bars to Peter. Peter caught it easily and Clint seemed impressed. Peter smirked, “spider reflexes,” he offered in the way of an explanation, and Clint nodded. “Figures,” the man muttered. He tossed the bag to Peter next, and when Peter gave him a questioning gaze Clint explained, “put your suit in it and stuff, you can’t just carry it around.”

He led Peter out of the room and they made there way back outside and toward one of the surrounding buildings that looked like a garage. Peter expected to see a car, but instead, it was a hanger. Peter stopped in his tracks, eyeing the varying sizes of planes. “Those are planes,” Peter said, still shocked.

“Observant,” Clint teased, “nothing gets by you.”

“I assumed we’d drive,” Peter tried to explain.

“Roads will be a mess, this is the best way.” He replied and walked over to the smallest jet in the hanger.

Peter was still frozen in the doorway and Clint turned around. “Come on kid, let's go," he said and then frowned slightly. “Hey, what’s your name? I should have asked before, I can’t go around calling you Spiderman or kid all the time.”

Peter had started walking toward the jet but paused again at the question. His identity was a secret. The man had obviously seen his face, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to give up his identity. He was hesitant to offer that piece of himself.

“If it’s the whole ‘secret identity’ thing,” Clint started, “I promise that I am good with secrets. It’s part of the whole spy gig.”

Peter figured he was trustworthy and the man was helping him, a lot honestly, even though he could have rushed off immediately to his family.

He started moving again and came up the side of the jet, walking up along Clint. “Peter.” He said quietly. “It’s Peter. Peter Parker.”

Clint nodded, “Nice to formally meet you, Peter. Now let’s get you home.”

They boarded the jet and Clint helped buckle Peter into the confusing straps. The next thing he knew they were in the sky, flying faster than Peter had ever gone. He tried to look down out the window and see what was below them, but they were moving too fast for Peter to get a clear picture of where they are.

Before he knew it they were landing on the roof of an unfamiliar apartment building. Peter climbed out of the jet after Clint released his straps and looked around confused.

“This isn’t my apartment building, I live in Queens,” Peter muttered, confusedly looking around at the unfamiliar roof and neighborhood. He had spent a lot of time on his roof as Spiderman and he could pick it out from a distance.

Clint looked uncomfortable, “It’s the address your mom gave me. She must have moved at some point.” Peter almost choked hearing Clint say his ‘mom.’ He guessed it wasn’t fair, the man had no way to know that May was his aunt. It was logical to assume she was his mom.

“My moms dead,” he said emotionlessly, too drained from the past day, of years he guessed, to really care. “She’s my aunt.”

Clint looked stricken. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” He said softly.

“Not your fault,” Peter replied, shrugging. He turned his back on Clint and made his way toward the staircase that would take him down into the building. He heard the gravel crunching behind him, meaning Clint was following him. He tugged on the door, grateful it was unlocked, and made his way into the staircase, and turned to Clint.

“What’s the apartment number?” He asked, realizing that he didn’t know.

“5112,” Clint offered. Peter nodded and made his way down the stairs to the fifth floor, opening the heavy fire door to walk down the hallway, still hearing Clint’s footfalls behind him. He read the numbers on the doors as he walked down the hall.

5104, 5106, 5108, 5110, there it was. 5112. He hesitated a moment at the door, not sure he was ready to face the reality of everything, despite his desire to see May.

Clint was behind him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. Peter took a deep breath, lifted his arm, and rapped his knuckles against the door. The door flew open and Peter was immediately met with May’s tear-stained face.

They made meaningful eye contact for a second, and then the calm was broken and May launched herself at Peter and wrapped him in a suffocating hug, sobbing hysterically into his shoulder and muttering incomprehensibly. He returned he hug somewhat hesitantly, surprising himself. He had expected to start sobbing as well, but his eyes were dry. He was happy to see May but he felt numb. Clint had moved around to the side to give them space and he met the man’s eyes over his aunt's shoulder. He was looking at Peter assessingly, seeming to notice Peter’s lack of emotion and trying to determine the cause. He tilted his head to the side, his gaze was piercing through Peter, but Peter didn’t have anything to respond with. He met the man’s gaze with his own blank stare. Clint seemed concerned but didn’t say anything. Finally, May released Peter and stood on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his forehead.

Peter pasted a smile on his face, looking May in the eyes and trying to force some sort of false emotion to shine through his numbness. There was movement over May’s shoulder and he looked up, in the doorway, there was a man that Peter didn’t recognize.

The man smiled at him and Peter felt his spider-sense tingle and he shuddered involuntarily, something that did not go unnoticed by Clint.

“Hi, Pete. It’s good to meet you. I’m Matt, May’s husband.” The man said, the same almost predatory smile on his face.

Peter stiffened, and May looked at him sheepishly, seeming to sense that this wasn’t the best way for Peter to hear this information.

May pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry Peter,” she said, a blush creeping up her face. “I’ll explain everything I promise. Nothing has changed with you, I promise. You are still my kid, I still love you the same, there is just someone else to share that all with now.”

Peter nodded numbly, not able to even process this change.

May turned to Clint, Peter had forgotten the man was here in the shock of meeting Matt. “Thank you so much for bringing him home. Really, I can’t ever repay you for bringing him back to me.” Clint blushed at her praise and brushed it off. “It was no problem. He’s a good kid.” Clint offered.

“Would you like to come in, have some coffee? Tea? Water? Something to eat?” May offered.

“I appreciate the offer, but I really have to get going,” Clint politely declined.

“Of course,” May said. “Thanks again.” Clint nodded and May put her arm around Peter to pull him into the apartment, Matt had moved out of the doorway to let them in.

“Hold on,” Peter said, shrugging out of her hold. He turned to Clint, “Thanks. Really, for everything.” He offered, not really having words, but hoping he could convey his point.

Clint reached out an arm and gave his shoulder a squeeze, the movement was becoming so familiar to Peter after just a few hours and he was surprised as to how much comfort it brought him. “Don’t worry about it kid. I am happy to help. If you ever need anything, please reach out. I mean it, anything. You’re a good kid, and you shouldn’t have had to go through all this so young. I’m serious, anything at all, even if you just want to talk, give me a call.” Clint said seriously, looking searchingly into Peter’s eyes and trying to communicate his sincerity. Peter was always reluctant to accept help, but something about the man’s demeanor made him nod in agreement. Clint released his shoulder, seemingly happy with whatever he had seen in Peter’s eyes and with his nod of acceptance.

Clint reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, pushing it into Peter's hand. Peter had no idea where the paper came from, looking down and realizing there was a phone number on it. Clint must have written it at the compound or something and Peter had been too distracted to notice.

“Thanks,” Peter choked out, feeling the tears return to his eyes. He couldn’t explain why reuniting with May hadn’t made him cry, but this act of kindness from another hero was about to break him.

Clint nodded, gave him a final squeeze on his shoulder, and Peter leaned into the touch one more time, something that again did not go unnoticed by Clint, who gave a smile, and then turned and made his way back down the hall. Peter stared at his back, watching until the man disappeared into the staircase before turning back around to face May and letting her pull him into the apartment and into this unknown new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe even to be friends.


	2. Apartment 5112

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter meets May's new husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made some changes to the first chapter and feel so much better about where the story is going now!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout the story, please take care of yourself!

Inside the apartment, Matt was waiting, looking expectantly at Peter. Peter let his eyes roam the apartment as he stood in the doorway, taking in the large living room and open concept floor plan with all the matching decor and the clean, modern look that spoke of more money than he and May had ever had. He and May had never done this well, especially after Ben died. They were usually living paycheck to paycheck, having to get creative just to make it through the month, but their apartment had always felt like home. This felt sterile, lacking the warmth of a real ‘home.’

May noticed his assessing gaze, “Matt is a doctor,” she supplied in way of an explanation, she patted his arm and walked further into the room, Peter followed and tired to gently close the door behind him, he felt like a stranger in this house and the last thing he needed was for his control to slip and him to accidentally pull the door straight off his hinges.

May went directly over to Matt and fell into his arms and he wrapped her in a hug. Peter wanted to feel comforted by how loving this man already seemed toward his aunt, but when the man met Peter’s eye over May’s shoulder, Peter felt his spider-sense tingle again.

“Glad to have you back, Pete,” Matt, releasing his hug with May and shifting so that he had one arm around May’s waist and the other arm came out to shake Peter’s hand. The predatory smile on his face made Peter want to turn around and walk back out of the apartment, climb back to the roof and swing off towards Queens, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Besides, everything was probably fine and he was just still in shock from the battle, that would explain why his spidey-sense was acting up. He owed it to May to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Peter tried to plaster a smile onto his own face and took the offered hand.

Matt’s handshake was almost painfully firm, which was saying a lot since Peter had superhuman strength, and Peter couldn’t help but flinch. He did his best to keep his face neutral, not wanting to give the man any indication of his discomfort. He already knew he wasn’t comfortable sharing his alter-ego with this stranger and didn’t want to do anything that might cause him to think there was anything out of the ordinary with Peter.

“Hey,” Peter managed to choke out. Seeing his distress, May eased herself out of her Husbands grasp and came over to put a hand gently on Peter’s arm. “Let’s all sit down,” May said. Peter nodded, letting the numbness wash over him again. May guided him to the sturdy kitchen table, pushing him down into one of the matching upholstered chairs. They never had matching chairs in their old apartment, is was always a collection of thrifted goods and Peter took comfort from it. There was something too put together about this apartment, it didn’t seem like ‘May’. Or at least the May that he knew. Who knows what this new May was like, five years later. She left him at the table and Matt took a seat across from him. May returned moments later with three bottles of water and a tray of cookies. Everything about this situation was wrong. They never had bottled water before, they couldn’t spend money on something that they could get cheaper out of the tap. And May would try to make treats, sure, but she had always been a horrible cook. These cookies looked both homemade and edible.

She set the water down in front of Peter and offered the tray out to him. He took a cookie robotically and bit into it. It tasted good. It didn’t make sense. She smiled at him.

“I’ve gotten better at cooking. Matt’s a great chef and I’ve learned a lot from him,” May explained looking over at Matt and smiling while she said it. There was a look in her eyes that Peter hadn’t seen since Ben. He was confused and overwhelmed but if this man, May’s husband (it felt weird to call him that, even in Peter’s head), made her happy, made her eyes shine with love in a way that Peter had forgotten they could, then he would give the man a chance. He couldn’t imagine what May had been through since he had left and in that moment he made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t interfere in her new life and her new happiness. He would blend in, wouldn’t make waves. His return wouldn’t upset the balance of everything. His world had been turned completely upside down and he knew how horrible it felt, he would not do that to May.

May took the seat next to Matt and then proceeded to explain everything that had happened in the past five years, or summarize it at least. Peter sat silently through it all, eyes glancing to her hand which was entwined with Matt’s occasionally. She explained grieving him, and Matt squeezed her hand and May leaned on his shoulder, seeking comfort while she teared up explaining those first few months after the snap. She explained how she met Matt a few months later at a coffee shop and her tears stopped flowing and a smile took over her face as she talked about it. She kept glancing up at Matt, that same look of adoration in her eyes that Peter had seen earlier. She explained that he had helped her to grieve and to move forward, though she kept assuring Peter she never forget about him no matter that she continued to figure out how to live her life. Peter nodded at the appropriate times, and May took this as acceptance that he understood and believed her. He did, he supposed, but more than that he was just unable to process anything and wanted to make sure she didn’t feel guilty. She didn’t deserve to be guilty, she had sacrificed so much for Peter over the course of the time he had been living with her, and it was his turn to sacrifice for her happiness. She talked about their whirlwind relationship and his proposal, their courthouse wedding, and finally moving across the city into this apartment. She seemed to slow down at this point, her gaze falling to the table and her voice dropping in volume. She explained that despite her love for him, living in their old apartment with all of the reminders of him was making it harder for her to move on, and she apologized profusely before telling Peter that she had ended up getting rid of most of his stuff. Peter nodded, and said it was no big deal, even though it was. She said she had a box of his things, and that she would go out right away and they could buy him new things and replace everything. He nodded again and May seemed to release a breath that she was holding, relieved that he wasn’t mad about any of her confessions.

Matt had been quite through all of this, simply offering silent support for May as she spoke. When she paused, he interjected going on about how excited he was to get to know Peter and how great this was going to be to have ‘their whole family’ together at last. Peter nodded at his declaration, but he felt like something was off. He couldn’t ignore the hum of his spider sense on the back of his skull that warned him that he should be careful with this man. He tried to smile at him in response to the man’s proclamations and Matt seemed to accept it.

He would make this work. It would all be fine. Or at least he would pretend it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe even to be friends.


	3. Whiplash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter spends some one-on-one time with Matt, but getting to know the man better does nothing to ease his anxiety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5.16.20 - Before posting this chapter, I went back and re-wrote the first two with some plot changes, so you might need to go back and reread those before reading this one. I was really stressing over whether or not it would be okay to do that, but it makes the rest of the story so much better and I have been a lot happier writing later chapters since I made the change. I'm still figuring out this whole thing so please don't hate me :) 
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

Despite the size of May and Matt’s apartment, there wasn’t a room for Peter. The apartment had a second bedroom, but it was Matt’s office and was full of bookshelves with medical journals and anatomy textbooks on them. Matt had said that they would work on moving everything out as soon as possible to make sure Peter had space, but with the chaos of everyone returning from the snap, he couldn’t promise Peter when that would be because he was going to have to work extra shifts at the hospital most likely. May had looked remorsefully at Peter and asked him if it would be okay. Peter nodded because that seemed like all he could do anymore.

After there conversation at the kitchen table, May told Peter that they would go out to buy some things to help him get by over the next few days. Peter had shrugged in acceptance, but Matt had interjected.

“Why don’t I take him, May? It would be a good chance to get to know him and I’m sure this has been an exhausting day for you, after coming off a night shift and you have been so busy with Peter, you haven’t slept since yesterday.” His tone of voice was innocent enough, but Peter felt like there was an edge of accusation toward him in the man’s voice. Maybe he was projecting, but it felt like Matt was saying his return was hurting May, and that was the one thing that Peter wanted to prevent.

“I’m fine,” May reassured them, “I don’t mind…”

“No May, you should rest. I’d be happy to go with Matt.” Peter interrupted her and tried to be as calm and convincing as possible. Maybe it was because it was the first time he had really spoken since he had shown up, but May accepted his statement at face value and started to nod.

“Well, only if you are sure Peter,” Peter nodded at her statement, “Okay, I am kind of tired and it would be good to get some rest before my shift tonight. You boys have a good time. Make sure to get all of the essentials Peter, a toothbrush, clothes, a pillow, underwear…”

“I think I’ve got it!” Peter interjected, a blush creeping down his neck at the embarrassment of his aunt telling him to buy underwear in front of this stranger. He really didn’t know why it bothered him so much, it wasn’t like underwear was something really weird, he just didn’t feel like it was something you talked about in front of a stranger. But maybe that was the point, Matt wasn’t a stranger to May so it wouldn’t be weird for her. He was only a stranger to Peter, so Peter needed to be the one to adjust, he shouldn’t expect May to.

She smiled a knowing smile at him. “I know, you’re fifteen, you already know all this. Go, have fun, and you guys should grab takeout or some dinner while you are out. I’ll probably be asleep when you get back, so don’t worry about eating with me.” May said, “Ooh, and don’t forget a phone. You’ll need a new cellphone so that we can get ahold of you and you can reach out to your friends and whatnot.”

Peter thought he saw a look of annoyance flash across Matt’s face, but it was gone so fast he guessed he had just imagined it. Matt’s face was the picture of a loving husband (it hurt for Peter to even think that word).

Matt nodded, gave May a kiss, then turned to the entryway to grab his coat and slip on some shoes. Peter gave May a sort of awkward half-wave and then followed Matt out into the hallway. They didn’t talk as they made their way to the lobby. The only real interaction they had was when Matt grabbed his arm when Peter walked past the elevators. Peter was so used to the always broken elevator at their apartment - correction - their _old_ apartment, that he assumed that they’d be taking the stairs. Matt could have said something to Peter, but instead, the man had grabbed him, and his grip was bruisingly strong. Peter had let out a hiss of shock, but tried not to react to the pain, he just added it to his mental list of reasons to be suspicious of this man. The bruise that he was sure the man had left would be healed in the morning, so it didn’t really matter anyway. One of the benefits of super-spider healing.

For the rest of their walk to the subway, Peter stayed a step behind Matt to make sure he could follow the man and there wouldn’t be a repeat of the incident in the hallway.

When they got to the station and Matt pulled out his metro card, Peter realized that he didn’t have one. His had been in his backpack, on the bus, and that was five years ago, so Peter assumed he would never see it again. It brought a wave of sadness over him to think about all of his things that were gone forever. He wouldn’t consider himself to be materialistic, but there were lego models that he and Ned had spent hours putting together, tech that he had made dumpster diving for parts, and notebooks of formulas and chemical equations that Peter would never get back and would have to figure out all over again.

When they got to the turnstile, Peter realized he needed to say something. It probably hadn’t occurred to Matt that he didn’t have a metro card.

“Um, Matt,” Peter started, tapping the man’s shoulder to get his attention. Matt spun around to glare at Peter, his gaze was piercing and venomous. Peter’s spider-sense flared yet again. He hadn’t realized the hum he had felt when he first saw the man was still there. It had dulled, but he had been on edge this whole time.

“Sir or Doctor Fuller, you’re a kid, I’m an adult, show some respect.” The man demanded through gritted teeth, his tone threatening.

“Sorry, so sorry sir,” Peter stumbled over his words to apologize. Of course, he should be respectful, just because some adults let him use their first name didn’t mean Peter should assume it was okay. He was always considerate with people’s names and tried to be polite and use ‘Ms. Or Mr.’ with everyone’s name. Why was he being so inconsiderate now? Maybe it was because he was so anxious. He hadn’t stopped moving since the battle and he felt like he was hovering on the brink of a complete breakdown right now. Although, even if he was disrespectful, Matt seemed really angry for such a minor infraction. Another incident for Peter to add to his list of negatives about Matt. The list was growing concerningly fast, and the humming of Peter’s spider-sense was only making him more suspicious, and in turn, even more anxious.

“I don’t have a metro card, sir. Sorry” Peter tried again, apologizing though he wasn’t entirely sure why. There wasn’t anything he could have done to get a metro card in the past few hours and it wasn’t as though he had done something wrong to lose it. Matt didn’t seem to agree with his assessment. He rolled his eyes dramatically and put a hand on Peter’s elbow, gripping him uncomfortably tight for the second time, and pulled him over to a kiosk.

The entire time he was getting a card for Peter, Matt was lecturing. Peter didn’t know where it came from, but the man was clearly upset about this all.

“I am not a bank. I married your aunt, not you and I thoroughly enjoy paying for things for her, but paying for you wasn’t part of the bargain. I’m doing this today because we have to and your aunt would have paid if I didn’t and she doesn’t deserve that burden,” he spit out the word ‘burden’ with vitriol and Peter flinched. It was a word that haunted his insecurities. He always worried about being a burden, to May and Ben when they got stuck with him without any say, then to May when she had to keep a kid that wasn’t even related to her after her husband died, even to Mr. Stark when the man had gone to all the trouble to make his suit. Hearing his fear confirmed made him want to curl up in a ball and disappear. But he couldn’t do that, so instead, he nodded at Matt’s lecture and accepted the card when the man finished loading it.

“Thank you, I promise it won’t be a common thing,” Peter said, although he wasn’t sure how he planned to make that a reality. Asking for things was a common thing, or had been before all the Thanos stuff. It wasn’t like he was bratty or greedy, or at least he didn’t think he was, it was just that he didn’t have a job and didn’t really have a way to get the things he needed without asking. He supposed he could get a job, some places would hire a fifteen-year-old, though technically you were supposed to be sixteen to work. Or was he nineteen? He had technically been born nineteen years ago so maybe he was old enough. When would he have time for a job though? With Spiderman and school, he hardly slept as it is…or was. Because that was all in the past, it was before…

Peter felt like he was on an emotional rollercoaster with everything that had happened over the past few hours. He hadn’t had time to feel anything while he was fighting and then the panic of Mr. Stark’s injury followed by the joy of seeing May that had quickly been overshadowed by his confusion about the time that he had missed and now he was completely consumed by his apprehension of Matt. His head was starting to ache.

Matt nodded, seemingly happy with Peter’s assurances. “Let’s go. Phone first, god knows that’s going to be expensive, then target. We should be able to get the other _essentials_ there.” He emphasized the word essentials, glancing at Peter to make sure he understood that he was a charity case and was only supposed to get what he absolutely needed. Peter understood. He understood that Aunt May was happy with this man and that this man was very unhappy with Peter, so Peter needed to stay out of the way and work on not being a burden because everything he had seen of Matt so far had indicated that the man wasn’t above a little bit of violence, and if Peter’s spidey sense was anything to go by, Peter would need to watch himself.

The rest of the outing was uneventful, even if it was a little awkward. Matt was all smiles and charisma when talking to the salesman at the cell phone store and he had been all business at Target. He went over and checked prices and picked the cheapest options for Peter, not that Peter minded. He at least let Peter dig through the racks that he chose to find his sizes and get clothes that fit. Peter was lucky that graphic tees were one of the cheapest things at the store so Matt didn’t protest when the shirts Peter got were his regular brand of science puns. At least one thing could stay the same. Peter got five pairs of everything. He picked them up one at a time under Matt’s watchful gaze and had seen something shift in the man’s demeanor after he put the fifth shirt in the cart and had gone to reach for another. Peter had quickly retracted his hand and Matt’s face had returned to a more neutral expression. He took that to mean that ‘essentials’ included five outfits and followed that rule through the rest of the clothing section.

As they walked by the shoes, Peter realized he only had the flip flops Hawkeye had given him and they were comically big. Peter had been tripping over his feet all afternoon, it was only his reflexes that had kept him from face planting into the ground at least ten times.

“I, uh, don’t really have any shoes sir,” Peter said softly. Matt let out a dramatic sigh but didn’t seem to argue and instead walked down one of the aisles, found an inexpensive set of tennis shoes, and told Peter to “hurry up and get your size, I don’t have all day.” Peter did as he was told. Checking out had been a bit uncomfortable. Even though Peter had picked the most inexpensive options, the total was still over $300. It was expensive to try and replace everything he owned. Matt didn’t seem to want to make a scene with other people around, so he just smiled through gritted teeth and checked out, making pleasant conversation with the cashier who was blissfully oblivious to the anger that was simmering under Matt’s facade.

Peter carried the handfuls of bags by himself, not that it was a problem with his strength, but Matt hadn’t offered to help anyway. They stopped by a pizza place on their way back and Matt ordered without asking what Peter liked, which was fine, Peter wasn’t picky. Matt joked with the man making their pizza while they waited. He must have been a regular because he was asking about how the man’s family was doing and if they’d heard from any relatives that had been snapped yet. For the most part, Peter was tuning them out and staring at the wall. The smell of the pizza was reminding him of just how hungry he was and that he could eat four large pizza’s on his own right now and probably still be hungry, but Matt didn’t know about Spiderman and Peter wasn’t going to tell him, so he would have to settle for eating a human amount of pizza. In the midst of his musing, Peter heard the pizza guy asking about the kid, Peter assumed it was him that the man was talking about, Matt explained that Peter was his wife’s nephew and that he’d been snapped but now he was back and was a part of their family. He mentioned that they’d been out buying a few things ‘to make Peter feel more comfortable’ and went on about how glad May was to have Peter back and how excited he was to have a kid in the house. The pizza man was nodding along and told Matt that he would ‘be a great father,’ which Matt just laughed at good naturally. Peter shuddered involuntarily at the thought of the man as his ‘father’. He hadn’t even thought of Ben as his ‘father,’ he had been his uncle and Peter had loved him just as much as his parents, but he’d never called another man dad and he wasn’t going to start with this stranger.

It was giving Peter whiplash. He had seen Matt with May earlier and the man had been the picture of a doting husband. Every person they had encountered on this trip had been met with that same charismatic and easy-going Matt. Peter seemed to be the only one that got the short-tempered and constantly irritated Matt. He had only been back a few hours and he was already getting a good idea of what the world he had been dropped back into looked like. It wasn’t at all the loving and supportive place that he had left behind, but it didn’t matter. He would do whatever he had to so that May never had to grieve because of him. She was the most important person in his life and he just had to accept that this life, with a man who clearly hated him, was his new normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe even to be friends.


	4. An Audible Snap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is trying to settle into his new "home" but Matt doesn't want him there and has no problem reminding Peter of that as often as he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is going up later than intended! I wanted to post on Friday but my brain has horrible timing and I was dealing with a migraine all weekend instead. I have the next chapter already written though, so it should be up later this week!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout and a brief mention of suicidal thoughts, please take care of yourself!

Things didn’t get better with Matt after their shopping trip. Peter was sleeping on the couch in the living room and he was using their shopping bags as a sort of makeshift closet since he didn’t really have anywhere to put his things. May apologized that they hadn’t cleared out the other room for him yet, but Peter assured her it was fine. Matt alternated between complaining about Peter’s things being in the way (although it often seemed as though he was just complaining about Peter being in the way) to offering insincere apologies that he hadn’t had the time to clean out the office and how guilty he felt that Peter didn’t have a space of his own. He always made sure to end his rants with something about how important his work was for the people he saved and with jokes about how it wouldn’t matter if the room was clean if he couldn’t pay the rent. Peter had tried to laugh along with May and just let things go, but it was eating at him.

He was messing up their life, always in the way, and he didn’t belong. These thoughts raced around his head because they were the only things he was hearing. He didn’t have a computer and Matt had made sure he had the cheapest phone plan so he didn’t have any data, although he didn’t think May realized that, so he had no way to hunt down his friends and find out if they were okay or if they had been snapped. He was planning to go the library and use a computer there, but May had been clinging to him whenever she was home and Peter never wanted to do anything that would upset her, so he was staying at the apartment (he wasn’t ready to refer to _Matt’s_ apartment as home yet, because as far as he was concerned it wasn’t his home, he wasn’t even welcome there). He had all but given up on reaching out to his friends. He was afraid of learning that they had moved on to college and that it was just one more thing that he could add to his list of reasons that his new world was so different. At least if he didn’t know, he could pretend that he would see them when he went back to school and it gave him something to hope for in the midst of the hell that had become his new life.

May was working night shifts, so she and Peter spent part of the day together and she left for work around the time that Matt got home. May made sure that Peter ate substantial meals during the day while she was with him, she had briefly brought about the topic of telling Matt about Peter’s ‘spider thing’ but Peter had told her he wasn’t ready yet and she had accepted it. He supposed she would have been concerned if she saw that Matt wasn’t really letting Peter eat enough for a normal teenage boy, let alone one with a super metabolism, but Peter wasn’t going to comment on it, he was getting by. With the constant anxiety he felt around Matt, he usually wasn’t hungry anyway.

He normally made himself scarce when Matt got home, which was difficult to do since he didn’t have a bedroom. He had taken an organic chemistry textbook off one of the shelves in the office, without asking which was sure to get him in trouble if Matt ever found out, and Peter would climb to the roof and lay down under the stars to review the book and start trying to redo all of the work on his webbing that he had lost with the snap.

Matt never commented on his absence and didn’t seem to know that the book was gone, so Peter had taken a notebook out of the office as well and now had pages full of his nearly illegible scrawl of reactions and synthesis equations that, fortunately, seemed completely random to the innocent bystander because they were so jumbled. Peter hadn’t done it that way to protect his identity per se, but they were working copies and so the scratch outs and messy scribbles seemed perfectly appropriate for the journal. It was just an added benefit that nobody would look at it and realize he was working on web fluid compositions for Spiderman, among some of his other projects in the notebook.

When he was in the apartment, things were tense. Matt took every opportunity to remind Peter what an inconvenience he was and to push him around. Peter tried to be helpful and stay out of the way, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going out as Spiderman right now, partially because he needed a break and partially because he didn’t have a bedroom and there was no way for him to go out and sneak back in. If he was being honest, that was just the excuse he used to assuage his guilt at leaving the citizens of Queens to fend for themselves. If he had really wanted to, the roof was private enough to leave from there and he would just have to make sure to get back before Matt would think it was too late, May knew about Spiderman and he didn’t think she would say anything. Then again, she hadn’t mentioned the fact that he wasn’t going out right now. He supposed she was grateful.

He had tried to go out once. His suits stayed in the plastic bag that Mr. Barton had given him that he had hidden on the roof, worried that Matt would find it in the apartment. He had gone up and put his mask on, excited to talk to Karen again and hoping she could help him find his friends, but the moment he had put the mask on his head, he had a panic attack and that was the end of it. He had distantly heard her say hello, and maybe something about having messages for him, but he had ripped the mask off too quickly to really process anything.

The week after the battle, Peter had been coming in from the roof and wasn’t paying attention. His mind was on the formulas that he had been tweaking and how he could improve his web fluid. He was mentally trying to run through using a different catalyst in the synthesis reaction, something more abundant and with a lower activation energy, but couldn’t figure out the ration of the reagents yet.

He hadn’t meant to slam the door behind him, but in his distracted state, he’d let his super strength get the best of him. The crash of the door resounded through the apartment and Matt immediately came out of his office in a rage. Peter set his book and notebook on the entryway table, hoping that if it wasn’t in his hands, then Matt wouldn’t notice it. He shouldn’t have worried, Matt only had eyes for him. The man came right up to Peter, grabbing his shirt front and pulling him forward.

“What the hell was that!” Matt yelled at him, lifting Peter off the ground by his shirt in order to yell directly into his face. “You think you can go around slamming doors in my apartment??? I let you live here, you ungrateful brat, show some goddamn respect!” He annunciated the ’t’ in respect by harshly shoving Peter backward and releasing his shirt at the same time. Peter landed on his feet, but just barely. He was so focused on keeping his balance that he didn’t see the hand coming toward him until the slap landed across his face, succeeding in sending him to the floor this time. That was definitely going to bruise.

“Kids,” Matt spat with disgust in his voice before turning and walking back into his office. Peter stayed frozen on the ground for a moment, waiting to make sure Matt was not coming back. It was times like these that he desperately wished he had a room he could go to. He debated just turning around and going back to the roof, but he had come down because it was getting really dark and even with his enhanced vision, it was impossible to read or write anymore. He would have stayed up and just looked at the stars, he had always enjoyed the quiet, but ever since the snap, he found that he had to be careful with staying still too long without something to occupy his brain. The stars were the same before the snap and after, and Peter was grateful for that consistency and sometimes it was comforting, but other days that normalcy wasn’t enough to keep him grounded. If he’d had a particularly bad encounter with Matt or something else had happened that day, he found that he couldn’t focus on the normalcy, instead, his mind would take him straight to panic. The stars he loved would remind him of space, and of Titan, and the terror and pain. He couldn’t go back to the roof right now, he’d end up having a panic attack. Not to mention he was hungry.

When it seemed like Matt had settled back into the office and Peter heard the tell-tale tale sound of typing on a computer, he finally peeled himself off the ground and moved to grab the textbook and his notebook and slip them under the couch (his ‘bed’) for safekeeping. He tiptoed around, making his way to the kitchen and trying to assess if Matt had already eaten. If the man hadn’t, Peter figured he should make dinner for the both of them, to be ‘useful,’ but if he had already eaten, Peter didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he was ‘wasting’ Matt’s food on a ‘useless kid.’ He decided didn’t want to interrupt Matt with food or stupid questions right now and settled on making himself a peanut butter sandwich since it was something he could do quietly and the only dishes he would make would be a knife that he could wash and put away right after he used it.

He was more hungry than a peanut butter sandwich would satisfy, but he couldn’t draw attention to himself. Usually his constant state of anxiety left him feeling nauseous so limiting his food intake wasn’t hard, but it was catching up with him and he was feeling weak from the lack of calories and it was starting to make him dizzy.

He took his sandwich to the living room and sat down on the floor, his back resting against the couch. It was risky to eat in the living when May wasn’t here, but he felt safest when he was mostly blocked from view by the couch, and Matt was a big fan of the ‘out of sight out of mind’ philosophy when it came to kids. He lifted his hand up to touch his cheek, which was still stinging from the earlier blow, and he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten to this point. The bruise would be gone by tomorrow, but the rest of his problems were only getting worse.

* * *

It had been nearly four weeks, and things at the apartment were escalating as Matt got bolder. The man had noticed that Peter didn’t bruise as easily (in truth it wasn’t that he didn’t bruise, it was that his bruises healed faster, but that was still a secret) and that Peter wasn’t going to say anything to May. Most of the time, he avoided Peter’s face, but the few times his anger had gotten the best of him, the bruises had faded by morning before May got home.

He never had to say anything to Peter about keeping quiet. Peter saw how happy May was. He had forgotten what it looked like to see her in love and worry-free. She practically danced around the apartment when Matt was home and he was doting over her. They would cook together in the kitchen when May had a day off, or if she occasionally switched with a friend to take a day shift. She was normally getting home as Matt was getting ready to leave, and they always spent a few minutes together at the table, talking about their days. Peter always pretended to still be asleep because he didn’t want to interrupt their happiness with his presence. It didn’t hurt that Matt left him alone when it seemed like Peter was still asleep. The man was not a morning person and Peter did not want to get in the way.

It was a Saturday, May had taken a double shift, not because they needed the money like they used too, but because one of her friends had called in sick and May had offered to cover for her. Peter tried pretending to sleep, hoping Matt would leave or go into his office or something so that Peter could sneak out to the roof and kill time until May returned. He was willing to forgo eating for the day if it meant that he could just be alone. It had been a hard night, he hadn’t slept more than 30 minutes at a time and his entire body ached from the nightmares and memories of Titan. He didn’t think he could handle Matt’s roughness today.

Unfortunately, his plan backfired. Matt came over to the couch and grabbed Peter's wrist, harshly pulling him to his feet from his laying down position. It was a weird angle, and the moment he yanked, there was an audible 'snap' that seemed to echo around the apartment, and Peter felt a sharp pain in his wrist. He normally stayed quiet but couldn’t help the yelp that came out of his mouth. His abused body protested the harsh movement and the pain in his wrist had just sent him over the edge. Matt heard the snap and immediately dropped Peter back down. His face was full of shock, like he couldn’t quite believe that he had done that. He quickly masked his surprise and hissed at Peter.

“Stop being so lazy, get up, and make breakfast. You should contribute something to this house since you live here for free. May was so happy before you came back, and here you are, sleeping the day away and taking for granted her generosity at pretending you didn’t ruin her life.” Matt spat the words at Peter.

Peter nodded from his spot on the floor and put his hand beneath himself to pull himself up, but he had used his right wrist, the one he was now sure was broken, and couldn’t help the moan of pain that he let out, before switching hands and pulling himself up. He cradled his broken wrist against his chest and went to walk to the kitchen.

“Pathetic,” Matt muttered under his breath and disappeared into the office.

Peter couldn’t help but laugh once he was alone in the kitchen, the laugh came out as a harsh noise and Peter was sure it made him sound certifiably crazy, but at this moment, it was either laugh or cry and he didn’t want to know what Matt would say about a fifteen-year-old boy crying. It was just so ironic, his wrist was broken and he probably needed a doctor. Which shouldn’t be a problem considering he lived with a doctor and a nurse, but since the doctor had broken his wrist, it didn’t seem likely that anyone would help him.

He pushed the pain aside and got to work making a full breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon, and fruit. He started the coffee pot as well, assuming that Matt hadn’t had any yet considering how foul the man’s mood was. The upside of making breakfast was that it was pretty easy for Peter to make enough for himself without drawing attention, particularly if Matt was going to eat in his office.

When the meal was finished, Peter stared at the cup of coffee and plate of food sitting on the counter in front of him. He didn’t want to make two trips into the office, and ordinarily it wouldn’t be a problem to carry both at once, but his wrist was throbbing and he didn’t think he could hold a sheet of paper with that hand, let alone a mug of coffee. He resigned himself to making two trips, and apparently he shouldn’t have been worried, because Matt completely ignores his presence as he placed the food next to him and then returned with the man’s coffee.

Peter would have been suspicious, but he was pretty sure that Matt hadn’t intended to break a bone and it was throwing him off. Not enough to apologize or do anything about it, but enough to leave Peter alone, which he was grateful for.

He returned to the kitchen and scarfed down his breakfast, eating enough to actually partially satiate his hunger, but not as much as his body would want with his healing working almost non stop on his Matt-inflicted injuries and whatever invisible damage from the snap it seemed to constantly be battling. He finished his breakfast and painfully cleaned up the kitchen, quietly grabbing Matt’s dishes from the office without incident.

He decided to go to the roof and read. Anything to take his mind off his wrist. He could feel the bones trying to knit themselves back together already and it was excruciating. He grabbed the organic chemistry book, which he had read through twice in its entirety at this point, but left the notebook in it’s hiding place under the couch. Writing didn’t seem like a possibility with his right wrist being the one that was hurt.

He didn’t open the book when he got to the roof though, he laid down on his back and closed his eyes, praying to fall asleep and just never wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe even to be friends.


	5. Always a Burden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter finally gets his own room, much to Matt's displeasure, but at least he has school to look forward to finally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timing might not be canon, but for the sake of my story, the second snap happens late July.
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout and a brief mention of suicidal thoughts, please take care of yourself!

It was a month after the second snap that it was announced that school would start on the first of September, and it was expected for students who had been snapped to resume school at the beginning of the year that they had missed. It was unfortunate, they had been a few months into the year and school was boring enough for Peter without having to repeat information. The most exciting part of going back to school was that it was an opportunity to see Ned and MJ, if they were still in his grade, and a chance to be out of the house and he was happy for any excuse to get away from Matt. His wrist had sort of healed by now, and he was able to use the hand, but it ached all the time, and holding a pencil all day at school was going to take a lot out of him. He had been extra wary of Matt this past week as well.

The only downside of going back to school was that it meant less time with May. He would have the excuses of homework and hopefully decathlon to keep him away from Matt in the evenings, but with May working nights, he was losing their time together during the day.

He still hadn’t gotten any other clothes, instead, he was rotating through the five outfits that Matt had bought him that first day. May hadn’t seemed to notice since he had worn science pun shirts every day before the snap and she wasn’t looking to realize that he was wearing the same ones over and over again. The weekend before school started May finally convinced Matt that they needed to clean out the office and get Peter a real bed. It took all morning on Saturday, but they moved most of the bookshelves into the living room and Matt’s desk into his and May’s bedroom. They left one of the larger bookshelves behind because it would have been heavy for them to carry. Well, not for Spider-man but Peter wasn’t ready to share that information. He didn’t think he would ever be ready to share that secret with Matt honestly. He was happy to have the bookcase though, it had a lot of Matt’s college and med school textbooks and Peter was looking forward to looking through some of them and having something to read during what he figured would be the many hours he stayed holed up in his room avoiding Matt.

When they went shopping Saturday afternoon, Matt had been the picture of generosity in front of May, telling Peter that he could get whatever he wanted to make his room feel ‘like home’ but once May had wandered off to look at something by herself, he had reminded Peter how expensive he was and that he shouldn’t be selfish.

Peter had settled for the necessities, picking the least expensive bedding and dresser he could find. He wasn’t going to ask for a desk, but May had picked one out for him and hadn’t asked for his input, and Matt couldn’t say no to her, so he ended up with a nicer desk than he had before the snap. They also got a few hoodies for him and a backpack and school supplies. Matt had realized that May kept commenting on Peter wearing Clint’s sweatshirt all the time and that the bruises would show under Peter’s sleeve when he wore short-sleeved shirts and seemed to think that buying Peter more hoodies would be a worthwhile burden since it would keep May from getting suspicious. Peter wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He really liked wearing hoodies and he didn’t want May to know what was going on between him and Matt anymore than Matt did. He felt like it was too late to say something, and there really wasn’t anything to say. Matt was a nice guy, he was just trying to help Peter to be a better person and there was no reason for Peter to be dramatic about it.

They had the furniture delivered that day and Peter spent most of the evening putting everything together. By the time his furniture was assembled, it was late and he was exhausted. He collapsed into his new bed hoping that the physical labor of the day would be enough to knock him out.

Now that he had a room, Peter did feel better about the apartment. He had a place other than the roof to hide from Matt. He had hoped that getting off of the couch would help him sleep at night, but it didn’t seem to have any impact on the constant nightmares that plagued his sleep or the continuous internal chattering of his anxiety reminding him why everything in this new world was just too much for him.

* * *

Peter shouldn’t have let himself get complacent. For the first time since he had returned, he had a genuine smile on his face at the idea of returning to school and resuming some sort of familiar routine. He was putting his things together in his backpack for school the next day and he had his back to the door, his things spread out on the bed in front of him, when his spidey sense went haywire and his whole body shivered from the anxiety of it. His spidey sense was always buzzing when he was around Matt so he had almost learned to ignore it, but the way it flared right now he knew it was going to be bad.

He slowly turned around, knowing he just needed to face the man and hope things were over quickly. As soon as he had met Matt’s eyes, the man’s hand had lifted and they had both curled around Peter’s neck, cutting off his air. Peter tried to gasp, but couldn’t. He felt like his eyes were bugging out, but he was too shocked to even try and fight off the man. He had never expected this kind of attack when May was actually home, she had the day off and was in the kitchen making dinner. Peter had thought Matt was with her since cooking was normally something they did together.

“Coming back wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to interfere even more!” Matt’s voice came out int a harsh whisper and he accented his words by squeezing Peter’s neck even tighter. “You take up space, you disrupt my home and you are a burden to my wife. I wish you were still dead.”

At this moment, Peter agreed with the man. He would willingly go through the pain of being dusted again if it meant that he could finally get away from this all. He had all but forgotten what his life had been like before Thanos. He had forgotten that there might be people out there who cared about him. He had forgotten about the scrap of paper tucked into his spiral notebook with Hawkeye’s phone number on it. He had forgotten about Mr. Stark and Happy and anyone else who might, just might, care if he was dead. None of them were here, in his life right now, to tell him otherwise and the only words he had heard since returning had been reminders of what a burden and a waste he was. May said nice things, but it didn’t matter. Matt was louder, more consistent with his vitriolic diatribes, and Peter realized that he fully believed everything the man was saying.

Matt shook him, his grip tightening to an unbearable point for a moment before he finally released Peter and the boy crumpled to a heap on the floor, gasping for breath. Matt just looked down at him, his eyes full of hatred, and Peter realized in the moment that the man was capable of killing him. He figured that May’s presence would keep him from doing it, but Peter was acutely aware that Matt was capable and motivated. He shuddered and Matt smirked at Peter’s pain and fear before turning and walking out of the room, shutting the door behind him. It was as if by closing the door, he was separating the two people he was. The loving husband, charismatic doctor, and an altogether likable guy, was out in the kitchen, making dinner with May. He probably had his arms around her waist and was swaying with her to the music that was playing. He would probably kiss the back of her head as Peter had seen him do countless times before and tell her she was beautiful or how much he loved her. Behind the door, in this room, he was a monster, and not just any monster, Peter’s personal monster.

Peter’s throat was raw, he snuck out of his room and into the bathroom to assess the damage. There were stark fingerprints around his neck, and he pulled on his hoodie to cover them even though it was 80 degrees outside. He went to the kitchen when May called and sat at the table and picked at his food, trying to keep his face neutral as he swallowed despite the sharp pain that it caused him.

Matt did a good job distracting May, he asked her questions about work and her friends and tried to keep the attention of Peter. When May did ask Peter a question, and Peter had croaked out a reply, she had given him a concerned look.

“Are you coming down with something?” She asked, reaching a hand across the table to rest on his forehead. “You don’t feel warm, but I’d hate for you to be sick for your first day back.”

“I’m fine,” Peter croaked out, trying to make his voice sound as normal as possible despite the pain it caused him. “I think it is just some allergies from dust after moving everything this weekend.”

May nodded, accepting his answer though she still looked concerned. “Well, if it doesn’t go away, let Matt take a look at you, living with a doctor has it has perks you know.” She turned and smiled at Matt as she said that last part. Peter nodded and tried not to flinch as Matt reached out a hand and patted him on the shoulder, “Right she is, I’ll take a look at it for you later if you want.” He offered, he was being the charismatic doctor for May’s sake right now.

“Thanks,” Peter said, knowing that playing into this charade was what was best for May and that it was the least Peter could do after everything that she had done for him.

Peter went to his room after dinner, laid down on his bed, and just stared up at his ceiling. His mind drifted again to the desire to fall asleep and never wake up. He was nothing but a burden to the world, he would be doing them all a favor.

A small voice at the back of his head reminded him that Spider-man was helpful and that people would miss Spider-man, and that they did miss the hero already. He had heard snippets of conversations on the news and people were wondering where the hero was now that everyone had returned. Knowing that Spider-man had value even if Peter Parker didn’t, did nothing to alleviate his dark thoughts. He felt a constant sense of guilt in the pit of his stomach that he was letting everyone down by being unable to suck it up and put on his suit. He needed to deal with his fears and get back out as Spider-man but just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t have any excuse other than fear. He had a room with a window now, he could get out now without disturbing anyone and Matt never bothered him during the night, the man slept like a rock and didn’t wake even when Peter didn’t catch himself after a nightmare and would cry out (something Peter did not take for granted).

Thinking of his negligence as Spider-man also brought Peter’s other greatest fear to the front of his mind - how Mr. Stark was doing. He’d heard the occasional comment on the news that the man was “recovering at an undisclosed location” and he assumed there would be press if he’d died, but it didn’t help to ease Peter’s anxiety. He had no way to get in touch with anyone to check up on his mentor and was sure that the man wouldn’t want the burden of talking to Peter anyway so he just tried to push it to the back of his mind and keep going through the motions. Maybe school tomorrow would give him the chance to do a little more research or send an email or something. Emails weren’t too burdensome, right? He couldn’t be sure anymore and his brain ran in anxious circles until he finally drifted off into a restless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe be friends :)


	6. Friendly Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's goes back to school and finally sees some familiar, friendly faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one of my favorites so far and I think I am kind of getting the hang of this? Or maybe it is just that I am getting really excited about this story and desperately want to tell it? Either way - a new chapter just a day after the last one! Enjoy :)
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

The first day of school, May had woken up early to make him a surprisingly edible breakfast. Peter was still getting used to the idea the she could cook. She offered to drive him to school, the new apartment was further than their old one in Queens and his trip would take an extra 30 minutes by subway, but Peter declined. He didn’t want to burden her, and he enjoyed the solace of the subway in the mornings.

He still didn’t feel good about leaving his suit at home, so he put it in his backpack. The residual guilt from the previous night had him thinking that maybe he would try putting the suit on again without having a panic attack and see if he could patrol after school since he would already be in the neighborhood. He was bouncing around that morning, not even Matt’s presence could stifle his excitement at potentially seeing his friends again. He was surprised that May hadn’t asked about Ned, but he supposed that she had been overwhelmed and busy with just Peter, or maybe she wasn’t sure and didn’t want to bring it up in case Peter already knew and wasn’t happy with the answer.

He showed up to Midtown thirty minutes before school and as he was walking up, he saw a familiar face scanning the crowd of students. He made eye contact with Ned and sped up, almost running to the steps to meet his friend. He was embarrassed that he felt tears prickling in the corner of his eyes at seeing his friends, but he wasn’t embarrassed enough to keep from embracing his friend in a very not-manly hug. It didn’t really matter, everyone around them was reuniting in an equally excited way.

“Man, I had no idea what happened to you. I sent you a hundred facebook messages, you never responded. Your phone number had changed too. What gives? I knew you had been snapped, your facebook hadn’t been updated in five years, but I couldn’t find you. I tried your old apartment but someone new was living there. I was so worried. I missed you.” Ned said, rambling everything without pausing to take a breath.

Peter tried to follow and responded, “May got married and moved. I got a new phone, but it doesn’t have data or wifi and my laptop and all my old stuff is gone.”

Ned looked at him in surprise. “Your phone doesn’t have data? What gives?”

Peter blushed sheepishly, “It’s expensive, that’s all.”

Ned nodded as though he understood but he still seemed skeptical. “Okay, well you have to give me your new number because I need to be able to talk to you. Do you think you could come over after school? My mom was worried about you too. And so was MJ, though I doubt she would admit it. She’s been asking me nearly every day if I got ahold of you or not.”

Peter released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding hearing about MJ. Everything was different, his life was out of control, but this would be the same. He had Ned and he had MJ, school could be normal, everything would be fine.

“I’m guessing you haven’t been getting the emails from the school then?” Ned asked, bringing Peter’s mind back to the present.

“May has I think, why?” Peter replied.

“They emailed out everyone’s class schedules, you should probably stop by the front office and try and get a copy of yours otherwise you won’t know what homeroom you are in.” Ned explained. Ned started walking into the building and toward the front office, Peter followed.

Peter felt a little bit stupid. Of course they would have sent out schedules, it was a new school year. Except it wasn’t a new year for Peter, he had been fully prepared to go back to his schedule before the break. It was another thing that was different and he felt his anxiety spiking again.

“You need to get your locker combo too,” Ned added.

This comment actually caused Peter to stop in his tracks. He needed a new locker combination. Meaning he had a new locker. Meaning everything in his old locker had probably been thrown away. He was starting over with all of his school notes and he wouldn’t have the benefit of going back to look at old notebooks when it came time to study for the AP exams, because he didn’t have old notebooks. He wasn’t sure why this particular idea was bothering him so much, he had always found school to be easy and he didn’t think he would have any trouble on the AP tests, but regardless of it was a rational reason or not, it was causing him a little bit of panic. Although that shouldn’t have surprised him because panic seemed to be becoming a normal emotion for Peter these days.

Ned noticed that he had stopped and turned around. “It’s a little weird.” Ned said to Peter, seeming to sense what Peter’s sudden stop had been caused by, “to come back into school as though we have only been gone a few weeks and find out it’s been years. It’s weird for everyone I think.”

Peter felt a little bit better at his friends acknowledgement of how disorienting this whole situation could be. For the past month he had felt so alone and isolated, the only people he had been around were people who hadn’t been snapped and weren’t going through the same thing he was. Ned backtracked, put his arm around Peter’s shoulder, and the two walked in to the front office together.

The secretary didn’t seem surprised when Peter said he needed his schedule and locker combination, it was apparently a common request today, and she quickly printed it out and handed it over and then wished Peter and Ned a good first day back.

Peter said thanks and then he Ned made their way into the hallway and toward the sophomore lockers, or at least where Peter hoped the sophomore lockers still were.

—

The school day passed in a somewhat familiar rhythm. Most of their teachers were the same as before the snap, with a few new faces. Their classes were a mix of old classmates and new. He and Ned found MJ in homeroom, and it was an awkward, but really sweet reunion. MJ had given him her normal, nonchalant, nod and said, “Hey dork, glad you’re alive.” And Peter had replied, “thanks, same,” and that was that. It was weird, but it was normal MJ and that was something Peter was grateful for. When they compared schedules they had all but two classes together as a trio. As they went through their classes, Peter realized most of the snapped kids seemed to have been put in the same sections when possible and that the snapped kids seemed to stick together, congregating on one side of the classroom and not really interacting with the other students that they didn’t know.

Unfortunately, Flash had been snapped. The only positive Peter had even contemplated about this all was not having to face his bully, but the universe really did seem to hate him. Other than a couple nasty looks though, Flash had left him alone for the most part. Peter realized that as much as he saw Flash as heartless, it was possible the other kid was having just as much of a hard time adjusting to all the changes as Peter was and he may not have the energy to keep bullying Peter. Or the world could be ending again and maybe Flash had somehow decided to be nicer as part of some post - snap existential crisis. It didn’t matter, Peter wouldn’t take the relative peace for granted while it lasted.

When the final bell rang, Ned went with Peter to the computer lab so that he could finally try to log in to his email and social media and see what he had missed in the five years he was gone and the month he hadn’t had access to the internet. MJ followed them and sat in a chair across from them, sketchbook in hand, diligently at work on something neither boy could see.

“Hey man,” Ned asked thoughtfully while Peter was logging in to the school computer. “If May was getting her emails, why didn’t you use her computer or phone or whatever?” Ned asked.

Peter shrugged, “I didn’t want to make a fuss and ask her to use her phone to surf the web, that would have been selfish, and the computer isn’t May’s, it’s her husbands, so I really don’t want to be a burden to him.” Peter tried to explain.

Ned seemed almost uncomfortable at Peter’s explanation. “Peter,” Ned started hesitantly, “I don’t think May could ever think you were a burden. And I don’t know her husband but you are seriously the most selfless person I know, there is no way that any sane person would think you were inconsiderate or a burden.”

Peter looked over at Ned out of the side of his eyes, shrugging his shoulder noncommittally, “I guess you’re right,” Peter offered, though he didn’t agree with Ned. It was probably easiest to just accept it and move on.

Ned nodded, not sure he believed Peter truly understood, but he chose to let the matter drop for now. Money had often been a struggle for Peter, but Ned had never made a big deal about it before. It was just that something seemed different about this. Ned decided he’s keep an eye on it, it was only fair that someone start watching out for Peter since Spiderman was always taking care of everyone else.

Peter’s email had tens of thousands of unread messages, most of them seemed to be spam from stores he had never shopped at, but somehow had his email. Interspersed in the mess seemed to be a few genuine emails. He made quick work of filtering out most of the junk and moving it to his trash folder and then started looking through the remains messages.

Some of them were from school or other officials, trying to get ahold of people in order to perform some sort of post snap census. Peter assumed that since he hadn’t replied, they had figured out he had been snapped and went ahead and deleted those messages too.

As he was filtering through everything, a new email showed up at the top of his inbox. The subject of the email was “Stark Industries Internship” and Peter quickly clicked it open.

It was an email accepting Peter in to a real internship with SI. Peter wasn’t sure if Mr. Stark had anything to do with this, but he couldn’t have cared less right now, all he cared about was the possibility of getting back into a lab and having access to tools and materials again.

His smile faded somewhat as he remembered that he hadn’t spoken to Mr. Stark at all since the battle. He knew that he was recovering at home, from what he’d heard on the news but didn’t have the man’s phone number anymore and didn’t want to to try and use Karen to call him. At first it was because he couldn’t bring himself to put the mask to ask Karen for help with all the phone numbers he’d had in his old phone and didn’t know anymore, but then, as everything had gone on with Matt, he realized he couldn’t talk to Mr. Stark at all. The man had a life after Peter, just like May did, and it was not his place to dump his emotional neediness in the middle of it. He needed to just let the man be and wasn’t sure if he could keep it all to himself if he was actually faced with his hero, so it was best to just keep his distance.

Peter printed the internship offer, folding it up and slipping it in to his backpack. He decided not to say anything to Ned and MJ right now, knowing he couldn’t explain to them why he couldn’t accept it and risk seeing Mr. Stark again. He could take the risk of being a burden and ruining someone else’s life. He glanced through the rest of his emails and messages and determined that there was nothing else that required immediate attention and he could come back during lunch tomorrow or something to take a crack at sifting through the rest of it.

Quickly he logged out and moved to pack up his stuff. Ned and MJ both noticed his sudden movement and followed suit. The trio made it outside and said goodbye to go their separate ways home. Ned asked again if Peter could come over, but Peter had declined and promised to come the next day. He was planning to try and go out as Spiderman today, he owed it to everyone to get back out protecting the city.

As he was walking away from the school, Peter heard a very familiar voice call his name.

“Hey kid! Peter, over here.” It was Happy. Peter spun around and saw the bodyguard standing next to a black Audi. Peter was was surprised to see him, but also felt a relief at seeing another familiar face after everything that had happened. He wasn’t sure what had compelled him to do it, but he found himself walking up to the man and hugging him tightly. Happy stiffened for a moment and then to Peter’s surprise, wrapped his arms around him and hugged him back. “It’s good to see you kid. Really good to see you.” Happy said quietly into the top of Peter’s head.

After a moment, Peter pulled himself together and released his grip on Happy. He had been surprised that the man had just stood their and held him, but it had felt so good that Peter hadn’t wanted it to stop.

Stepping out of the hug, Happy moved and opened the back door to the car. “Hop in kid,” he said.

Peter hesitated now. He knew he couldn’t get in the car, for multiple reasons. He had already decided he couldn’t face Mr. Stark, at least not yet, and was pretty sure that if he got in the car, he would have to. He also knew that Matt would not approve of any unauthorized excursions and his wrist ached just thinking about how he would be punished.

“I can’t Happy,” he was ashamed to realize his voice had cracked slightly when he spoke. The smile on Happy’s face dropped at this, “what do you mean you can’t kid? The boss wants to see you. Didn’t you get his email about the ‘ _internship,’”_ Happy asked, “I am pretty sure he means for it to be a real internship this time too,” he mumbled as an afterthought.

Peter shook his head. “I have to get home, I can’t just go off without telling anyone,” Peter tried to explain. Happy’s face softened again. “I get it,” he said to Peter’s surprise. How did he ‘get it’ if Peter himself wasn’t entirely sure what was going on? “Tony’ll understand. You should spend time with your aunt and when you’re ready and you’ve talked to her, just give me a call and I’ll drive you to the tower or the cabin or wherever it is.” Happy explained.

Peter understood now, Happy thought he couldn’t come because he didn’t want to be away from May. As much as he hated to admit it, Peter would love to spend some time away from the apartment, but it would be best to let Happy keep believing this. It all sounded pretty believable and Peter couldn’t come up with a better excuse. He wasn’t sure what Happy meant by ‘cabin’ but didn’t want to prolong the conversation so he didn’t bother to ask.

“Let me at least give you a ride home, kid,” Happy spoke again. Peter hesitated and was ready to decline but Happy was faster, “I won’t take no for an answer. And this way I can at least tell Tony that I spent some time with you and you are in one piece. It would make him feel better.”

Peter couldn’t think of an argument so he slowly nodded his head, and when Happy opened the door again, he slid into the car. He melted back into the soft leather seats and felt like he could truly relax for the the first time since he had come back. Something about being in Mr. Starks car and seeing Happy again had just made him feel safe and he clung desperately to that feeling, knowing it would be gone as soon as he stepped out of the car again.

As Happy climbed into the front seat and started driving, Peter realized the man was going to take him to the wrong apartment. “We, uh, moved. To Manhattan,” Peter said from the back seat before offering his new address. Happy looked confused for a moment and then nodded at him in the mirror.

“So, how is Mr. Stark,” Peter asked.

Happy smiled at Peter, which was still such a weird thing, “He’s almost good as new, has a great prosthetic from the Wakandans and everything. He’s been relaxing around the tower and and playing with Morgan. Pepper’s happy to have him taking a break too. Think they are planning to head back to the lake house sometime next week now that he is doing better.”

Petter nodded as Happy spoke, even though he had no idea what he was talking about. Morgan? A lake house? Happy must have noticed that Peter looked confused.

“I guess you don’t know,” happy started to say, more to himself than to Peter. He looked uncomfortable all of the sudden and explained, “Pepper and Tony moved out of the city after…after it happened,” he looked awkward and was glancing at Peter in the rearview mirror every few seconds as he spoke, “they, um, you should really hear this from him,” he muttered, “but, they got married and they had a kid. Morgan. She’s four.”

Peter’s heart stopped for a moment but he didn’t want Happy to see. “That’s great!” He said, probably with a bit too much enthusiasm because Happy’s nervousness turned to skepticism instead of relief.

“I mean, it’s a little crazy at first, but Mr. Stark deserves to be happy. I’m happy for him,” Peter tried again. Happy nodded but still seemed unsure of Peter.

Fortunately, they pulled up in front of the apartment and Happy didn’t have the chance to question him further.

“Thanks for the ride!” Peter exclaimed, quickly moving to get out of the car.

“Wait!” Happy said, hitting the child lock before Peter could get the door open. Peter just stared at the handle for a moment before giving Happy a questioning look.

“I know that you are adjusting, and Tony and I can respect your space, but could you do me a favor and at least start replying to our texts occasionally?” Happy asked.

Peter gave Happy a puzzled look and then said, “I haven’t gotten any texts Happy. My phone was in my backpack, on the bus, before it all happened. I have no idea where it is now. I have a different number now.”

Realization dawned on Happy’s face, “Geez kid, I’m sorry we are so stupid. I guess you didn’t have anybody else’s number to reach out either. That explains so much.” Peter didn’t bother to say that Karen could have contacted Mr. Stark, or that Mr. Stark could have contacted Karen for that matter. He didn’t want to have to explain that he was having panic attacks and couldn’t handle be spider-man right now.

“Give me your phone kid,” Happy said. Peter didn’t really see another option so he pulled the phone from his backpack and handed it over. Happy froze when he took it and stared at the device for a while.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t even know they made flip phones anymore. What is this?” Happy looked at Peter incredulously.

“It’s a phone,” Peter said, a hint of annoyance coloring his voice, “not everyone is a billionaire and we had to buy a lot of new stuff, okay? Don’t make a big deal out of it.” Peter couldn’t help but notice the way Happy glanced up at the fancy apartment building before looking back to Peter.

“Sorry about that. I’ll have Tony send you a new-” Happy said but before he could finish Peter was interrupting, “NO!’

Happy froze, looking at Peter in shock. “I mean no thanks, really, I can’t accept that.” Peter tried again in a calmer voice.

Happy shook his head and typed his number into the phone. “Text me, okay?” Happy asked when he was done. Peter nodded, though he had no intent of following through. As good as it felt to see Happy, he knew it was too risky and it would complicate things with Mr. Stark.

Peter went to open the door again and when it wouldn’t budge, he looked at Happy expectantly. Happy moved to unlock it but paused, “Is everything alright kid?” He asked, the teasing tone from before gone and replaced with concern. Peter felt a little bit warmed by that but also nauseous. It was good to feel like somebody cared about him, but too risky.

“I’m fine Happy, just don’t want to be late,” he said. Happy didn’t look like he believed him, but unlocked the door anyway and Peter quickly jumped out, waved goodbye, and ran into the apartment building.

This had been too close. He had his closure, Tony was recovering, now he needed to make sure he didn’t do anything to mess that up for the man. If he just waited, Tony would stop feeling obligated to check in on Peter and would go back to enjoying his life. That would be best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really leaning into the fandom life and recently started using tumblr as aggieadventuress, so come find me if you want to comment or say hi...or maybe be friends :)


	7. Breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School and friends are giving Peter the stability he needs to start breathing again and maybe even start spider-manning. And also some long-awaited favorite hero might finally make an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it weird to say that I was really impatient for the next chapter and so I just had to write it? Daily updates are definitely not sustainable, but sometimes it just happens because I'm easily excitable and everyone has been so encouraging so enjoy another one of my favorite chapters!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

He still wasn’t used to the working elevator, so Peter took the stairs to the fifth floor. If he was being honest with himself, he was wasting time trying to put off running into Matt. May would be at work already, so it would just be him.

Peter worked up his courage, pulled out his keys, and tried to unlock the door as quietly as possible. Maybe if he could just get to his room without Matt noticing, the man would leave him alone.

Despite his best efforts at being unnoticed, the door creaked loudly when he opened it. It wouldn't have mattered either way though, Matt was sitting on the couch in the living room watching TV and his head turned to stare at Peter as soon as he walked in. Matt picked up the remote and muted the television, and then stood to walk over to Peter, Even his walk seemed threatening and Peter tried to shrink in on himself to be as small of a target as possible.

“That was a damn expensive car, who the hell drove you home!” Matt yelled at Peter, reaching up and grabbing Peter by his shoulders and shaking him as he yelled. Peter flinched at his yelling, but didn’t even feel the mans bruising grip anymore, he was becoming numb to it. He wasn't even surprised to know the man had been watching out the window to see when he got home, nothing about Matt would surprise Peter anymore. The shaking was making him dizzy though, and with the not sleeping or eating enough, he was worried that he might pass out if Matt kept this up.

“Answer me when I talk to you!” Matt yelled again, spit flying out of his mouth and splashing Peter’s face.

“I…it….it was my friend's dad. He offered me a ride.” Peter stuttered out, hoping that his fear was normal to Matt by this point and wouldn't give away his lie.

Matt stopped shaking him and squeezed his shoulders even harder, lifting Peter off the ground so he was at eye level with the man. “You better not be fucking lying. You’re a pain in the ass, but you better not be running around getting into trouble or whoring yourself out for money or something.” Matt spat out, not yelling anymore, but the quiet anger in his voice was worse to Peter.

He finally dropped Peter, and Peter’s legs didn’t catch him in time. He felt his ankle roll from the impact and then he crumbled to the floor. Matt gave him a swift kick to the ribs and then turned and walked away. “Get up and go to your room,” Matt called over his shoulder, settling back on the couch and unmuting the TV, acting disturbingly as though nothing had happened.

Peter hauled himself off the floor and made his way to his room, shutting the door softly behind him and locking it. The lock was the little push-button kind and could easily be overpowered but it still gave him some peace of mind. He was grateful that was the only interaction he would most likely need to have with the man for the rest of the night. Regardless of how dizzy and hungry he felt, there was no way he was going to brave crossing through the living room again to try and get something to eat. He’d split a granola bar with Ned during seventh period and that was just going to have to do.

He was emotionally exhausted from school and the car ride, but he couldn’t help the little bit of warmth he felt at how concerned and genuine Happy had been. It had been a long time since Peter had felt like there was anyone in his life who was interested in his well being, and as much as he loved May, the apartment was so toxic that he couldn’t even relax around her.

The day had reminded him that there was more to life than the things that went on behind the closed doors of this apartment. He had Ned and MJ, school, Mr. Harrison had invited them all to rejoin the decathlon team. He might even have Spider-man again. Just being around Happy had made him nostalgic for patrols and for Spider-manning in general. He was still a constant ball of anxiety, but he was also a hopeful ball of anxiety which was a new feeling.

* * *

Peter’s life fell into a new rhythm now that he had school, a rhythm that fortunately involved a minimal amount of Matt. He would usually make it out the door pretty quickly in the morning, sometimes crossing paths with May coming off her shifts but never waiting around for her since he knew that Matt would be there waiting as well. School was a blissful reprieve in his anxiety. His spider-sense was constantly tingling when he was home and because of that, he never felt like he could truly relax. When he was at school and with Ned or MJ, he could breathe, for what felt like the first time since he’d seen the spaceship on his field trip. His classes were jokingly easy, which was good for him because he still wasn’t eating right and was having a lot of trouble focusing and staying awake in, but note-taking and lectures were another welcome bit of normal back in his life. He had gotten permission from May and stayed after school three days a week for decathlon, which meant he was rarely home until right at dinner and would go straight to his room to do homework, opting to sneak out late at night for a snack if he was feeling brave or just opting to go hungry altogether. It was worth it if it meant avoiding Matt. The man was still pushing Peter around every chance he got and regularly reminding Peter what a waste of space he was, but after the first day he hadn't commented on Peter's schedule so he was able to hang out with his friends without any additional consequences. Peter’s wrist still ached after long days of note-taking, reminding him that the threat was very real, but the man was being a little more careful now that Peter had to go to school and the risk of someone asking about a visible bruise was seemingly too high.

It took a full week of school and seeing his friends for Peter to finally get to the point that he could put the suit on. He had decathlon Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, so when Tuesday came back around, Peter went straight to Ned’s locker before first period and mentioned that he was planning to go out as Spider-man after school and asked if he wanted to sync up with Karen and be his guy in the chair for a few hours. He didn’t mention that a big part of the reason he wanted this was because he was so nervous about putting the suit on again, but Ned was incredibly perceptive and seemed to pick up on everything Peter meant without him needing to say it. Ned hadn’t even brought up the complete lack of Spider-man over the past month, he had somehow known that Peter needed space to just be Peter and had been there for him without asking any questions.

Ned and Peter were both giddy with anticipation throughout the school and MJ kept shooting them knowing looks that made Peter feel certain she had a guess about what was really going on, but he didn’t allow that to put a damper on his excitement. Finally, the last bell of the day rang and Peter shot out of his seat and headed for his locker to trade out his books. Ned was right behind him. MJ just shook her head at the two boys and followed them out of the school. When they got outside and to the steps, Peter paused and tried to explain that he was going over to Ned’s to do ‘boring’ stuff, not wanting to tell her that she couldn’t come but also not having a good reason why.

“Don’t worry nerds, I can’t hang out today. I have to help my mom out with something,” Peter’s shoulders relaxed in relief as she said this. “I wish I could _swing_ by, but maybe another day,” she emphasized ‘swing’ by sending them a knowing look and before Peter and Ned could even process the implications, she had turned and walked away.

“Dude,” Ned whispered once MJ was a few yards away, “you think she knows?”

Peter stared at her retreating form, “Absolutely. But you know what, I don’t actually think I’m worried about it,” he shrugged. He had expected the realization of being discovered to cause him a lot of anxiety, but after everything that had happened, he thought he knew when someone was worth worrying about and MJ was one of the only people he felt truly safe with so he wasn’t going to let it bother him. Ned looked at him incredulously for a moment before slowly nodding. “Whatever you say man. Let’s go do some heroing!”

—

Peter split off from Ned and headed down an alleyway to change into his suit. Ned would head home and join him online once he got settled. The feeling of changing into the suit brought butterflies to Peter’s stomach, but it was just anxiety this time, not full-blown panic. He stared down at his mask for a few extra seconds once he had his suit on before finally taking a deep breath, and pulling it over his face.

He was immediately greeted with the friendly voice of his AI.

“Welcome back Peter.”

“Hey Karen, I’ve really missed talking to you. Sorry it’s been so long,” Peter really had missed getting to talk to Karen. She might have been a computer program, but she was still his friend.

“I’ve missed you too Peter. I have 162 messages from Mr. Stark, Mr. Hogan, and Colonel Rhodes. Would you like me to play them?”

Peter let out his breath and focused on the sound of Karen’s voice, trying not to let his thoughts drift. He was a little bit slow to process her statement because he was trying so hard to stay calm and realizing what she said almost sent him into a full panic anyways.

“162 messages? Karen, why was Colonel Rhodes sending me messages?” Peter took a deep breath, shot a web to stick his backpack to the wall, and then another to pull himself up to the top of the building he was next to. As soon as he started swinging, a sense of calm came over him and the seconds-from-panic feeling faded some.

“Colonel Rhodes sent updates on Mr. Starks health and recovery process via Friday for the first few weeks after the battle, would you like me to read them?” Karen asked. Peter felt his near-constant guilt rearing its ugly head at hearing that. The man had kept his promise to update Peter and he had been too self-absorbed with his own problems to know it. There was nothing he could do about it now.

“Not right now. Unless there is something new or something bad that I should know,” Peter replied hesitantly.

“All of the updates indicate only healing and progress. There is nothing of concern to note,” Karen answered and Peter released a bit of tension he was starting to feel. “You still have 97 messages from Mr. Stark and Mr. Hogan with varying dates from immediately after the battle on Titan up until this morning, would you like me to read them?”

Peter halted in his swinging at hearing that. “What do you mean after the battle, Karen. I was…” he swallowed hard, “I was gone. How could they message me?”

“Mr. Hogan sent multiple communications prior to Mr. Stark's return to earth in an attempt to determine your whereabouts and assess your safety. When no reply was received from my system, Friday archived them and they were downloaded once we came back online.”

Peter couldn’t begin to process what Karen was saying, and “we came back online” was such an uncomfortable way to explain what had happened he just decided to ingore it. He did feel a little bit of warmth at the way Karen talked about them as a team though. She wasn’t alive per se, but Peter still thought of her as a friend and if solidarity with his AI was weird, that was fine, nobody else really needed to know.

“Just leave those for now,” Peter answered her after a few moments. He didn’t want to deal with any of that right now. “Anything going on I should know about?” Peter changed the subject to focus on his first patrol back because that was something he could manage.

“Yes Peter, there is an alarm going off at a store down the street, plotting the most direct route.”

—

For the next few hours, Peter swung around queens stopping petty thefts and helping old ladies cross the street. Ned joined him and provided a steady stream of chatter in his ear and any residual anxiety he had felt about being back in the suit dissolved once he had Ned's reassurances and saw how excited people were to see him back.

Peter disconnected from Ned and was getting ready to call it a day, swinging back to the alley where his backpack, so he could head home to get some homework done, but planning to come back out once Matt had gone to bed, when Karen announced, “incoming call from Mr. Hogan.”

Peter landed a rooftop a few buildings away from his backpack and before he had time to respond, Karen had accepted the call and Happy’s voice filled Peter’s mask.

“Hey kid. Happy to see your back in the suit.” Happy said.

Peter was still a little bit taken aback and couldn’t formulate a coherent response. After realizing Peter wasn't going to reply right away, Happy continued. “I was kind of hoping that you would have used the phone number I gave you kid. Even just to check in and say hi. I know there is a lot going on and I’m sure your aunt doesn’t want to let you out of her sight to spare a few minutes, but if you are going out as Spider-man again, I’d just like to know how it’s going.”

“I…” Peter started, not really knowing what to say. “I’m sorry Happy, I didn’t want to bother anyone and I’m fine. I would have called if I had gotten hurt or something,” Peter tried to explain himself.

“Geeze kid, I hope you realize that you don’t need to be bleeding out on a beach somewhere to talk to me. In fact, I’m calling because there are a few people at the tower, myself included, who would really like to see you and I don’t think they will take no for an answer this time. Where are you at, I am in the area and can come pick you up?”

Happy's words caught Peter off guard, he had trouble picturing the man he knew before saying such sentimental things, but it felt really good to hear. As much as he had resolved that he shouldn’t see Mr. Stark and get in the way, he was feeling so good after school and patrol and now Happy, that he spoke without thinking it through, “My backpacks in an alley a few streets away. I need to get changed and I can meet you.” Peter gave Happy his location and then ended the call and made his way to his bag, refusing to dwell on any negative thoughts about his decision to finally face his mentor.

—

Happy got there a few minutes after Peter and was out of the car and holding the door open before Peter even fully registered that he had arrived. Peter tried to look confident as he climbed in, hoping that the nagging guilt and anxiety in the back of his mind would stay quiet long enough for him to get through this.

Happy closed the door behind Peter and walked around to the front of the car, climbing in the driver’s side. Peter still half expected the man to immediately roll up the privacy screen, it was what Happy had always done before, but he left it down, and, as he pulled out on the road, he asked Peter how his day was.

Peter gave noncommittal, one-word answers to the man’s questions. Happy wanted to know how his school day was and how his patrol had gone and though Peter appreciated it, this was just another thing in this new world that was different in this post-snap world and all of the attention was making him nervous.

Thirty minutes later they were pulling up to a familiar-looking tower and instead of coming to the front door like Peter expected, they had pulled into some sort of underground garage. Peter had been to Avenger’s tower once before, but it had been a special trip with Ned’s mom and they had just been coming to see the Avenger’s museum that was on the second floor, it was the only space that was open to the public. This must be some sort of private entrance. Peter was pressing his face to the window as they passed what Peter assumed was at least a million dollars worth of luxury cars.

Happy parked and was out of the car opening Peter’s door before Peter had the chance to realize that they had stopped.

Happy went to put a hand on his back to guide him toward the elevator, the movement caught Peter off guard and he reflexively jumped away from Happy. A month of being pushed around by Matt on top of the constant state of anxiety Peter was always in had put him on edge. Happy froze to stare at Peter who felt a blush rising up his face and down his neck.

“Sorry,” Petter muttered, barely audible even in the relative silence of the garage, “you just caught me off guard a little.”

Happy nodded, looking at Peter skeptically, seeming to think there was more to it than just that, but not questioning Peter just yet. They walked over to the elevator, Happy now keeping a safe distance from Peter, which he was grateful for. The elevator doors opened automatically when they were in front of them and a voice seemed to speak to them from the ceiling the moment that they stepped in.

“Good afternoon Mr. Hogan, Mr. Parker,” the disembodied voice said. Peter again, jumped a foot in the air in surprise. Happy chuckled a little bit at his response this time and explained, “that’s just Friday, Tony’s AI. I forgot that you’ve only been to the compound and hadn’t met her yet.” Peter nodded, remembering reading something about the man’s buildings being controlled by artificial intelligence.

“Mr. Hogan, would you like me to take you to the Medbay? Mr. Parker appears to be showing signs of injuries at various stages of healing. His broken wrist appears to have set incorrectly.” All of the blood drained from Peter’s face when he heard the AI basically out all of his secrets to Happy in an elevator. He couldn’t bring himself to look to see what Happy’s response to Friday’s question was. Whatever he had prepared himself for in seeing Mr. Stark again, this was not it and he felt his breaths quicken in panic and his vision was tunneling in on the door to the elevator, the world was fading away around him. He sank to the ground, tightness in his chest making it impossible for him to breath.

Happy was momentarily frozen hearing Friday’s announcement. Tony had told him that the kid hadn’t been out in the suit since after the battle and ‘various stages of healing’ wouldn’t really add up with today being the first patrol. Happy tried to reason that nobody had actually checked the kid's health after the battle and Clint wasn’t as familiar with Peter’s penchant for downplaying the injuries so it was possible that this was something that he'd missed that hadn’t healed properly, but he still felt very uneasy.

He opened his mouth to demand answers from the kid but quickly realized that Peter was in no state for an interrogation. It looked like Peter was spiraling into a panic attack, and a pretty severe one if Happy’s experience with Tony was anything to go by.

“Friday, take us to the medbay, alert Tony, and initiate Panic Protocol.” Happy yelled at the AI, sinking to the floor next to Peter.

“Boss has already been notified,” Friday responded and dimmed the lights in the elevator to a more soothing level and beginning to count breaths in and breaths out. Happy mimicked the speed of Friday’s breaths and reached out for Peter’s hand to place it over his own chest. Even in his state of panic, Peter flinched at Happy’s touch but the man chose to ignore it this time and file it away for later.

“Breath with me kid.” Happy said, trying to use a soothing yet commanding tone. “Listen to Friday and copy my breaths.”

Peter heard the instructions through the haze of panic and tried to do as he was instructed. Someone was counting, telling him to breathe in and out and he could feel the rise and fall of Happy’s chest underneath his hand. His breathing started to slow and the world started to come back into focus. His gaze was locked onto his hand on Happy’s chest as he regained his composure, so he didn’t notice the doors behind him opening and Mr. Stark standing there, a look of deep concern on the man’s face. Happy, however, did notice Mr. Stark.

“You doing okay now kid?” Happy asked, his tone still uncharacteristically gentle. Peter nodded, not willing to trust his voice right now, and dropped his hand from the man’s chest. He felt completely drained and found himself sagging back against the wall of the elevator.

Happy moved out of the way and Mr. Stark moved into the elevator, coming into Peter’s line of sight and sinking down to a knee so that he was on Peter’s level and looking directly into his eyes. Peter closed his out and let out a groan when he realized that his mentor, the hero who had saved the entire universe, had just seen him have a full-blown panic attack. Between the feelings of inadequacy Peter had always had around Mr. Stark and his newly constant feeling of guilt, he began to feel panicked all over again. His breath hitched and he clenched his eyes tighter.

“It’s okay, just keep breathing kid. Open your eyes for me so that you can see that you are safe and in the tower. Promise I’m not scary enough to warrant panicking over again.” Mr. Stark’s tone was attempting to be light and encouraging, and Peter did his best to follow the man’s instructions and slowly opened his eyes.

“How about we move from this elevator? I have much more comfortable floors to spend time on,” Mr. Stark tried to make it a joke, but he couldn't completely hide the strain in his voice and his eyes were swimming with concern.

Peter nodded, still not trusting his voice and desperately trying to keep it together. He put his hand on the wall behind him, pushing himself up, and Mr. Stark rose with him. As soon as Peter was firmly on his feet, he felt his knees start to give out and he was crumbling to the ground again. Two sets of arms reached out for him and held him up, keeping him from hitting the ground. His vision was swimming again, not the same blackness as his panic attack, but the blurriness of pure exhaustion and potentially of not having eaten enough over the past few days.

“I got him Haps,” he heard Mr. Stark say, and before Peter could protest, he felt an arm come behind his legs and he was swept up and being carried in someone’s arms.

Peter tried to protest, he hadn’t even really gotten a good look at the man, but Mr. Stark was hurt or recovering, he shouldn’t be carrying him. “No, ‘m fine. Put me down. You’re hurt.” Peter mumbled, embarrassed by how weak and shaky his voice was.

“Kid, I have a vibranium arm now, and I promise you I am all in one piece and still in great shape. I’m a superhero for god's sake. Also, I think Morgan weighs more than you, but we’ll talk about that later.” Mr. Stark told him.

Peter didn’t have the energy to fight and felt his head falling against the man’s chest and his eyes drifting closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, our favorite super-dad has made his debut! I think part of the reason I have been writing these past few chapters so quickly was that I was ready for Tony to show up and just desperately needed to get us there. 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr if you want at aggieadventuress!


	8. Some Confessions, Some Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter comes to in the medbay and has a lot of questions to answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't think I can't keep up with posting this frequently for very long, especially during the week, but everyone has been so encouraging so this has been a particularly productive weekend and I really don't want to wait to post since this chapter is finished! Enjoy :)
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

He didn’t remember anything that happened, but when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a bed of some sort with a pinch in his arm, which turned out to be an IV.

He scowled at the offending needle in his arm but was drawn out of his musing by Mr. Stark, who was standing up from a couch Peter hadn’t noticed and putting a StarkPad down as he walked over to Peter.

“Gave us a bit of a scare there kid,” Mr. Stark said, prompting Peter too blush and mutter, “Sorry, Mr. Stark.”

Mr. Stark lifted a hand, waving off his apology. “Firstly, it’s Tony, and it’s fine, although you, apparently, are not.” The man continued, “Your blood sugar was dangerously low for a human, let alone a spider-kid. And that’s not to mention how underweight you are according to Helen. She’s got you on nutrients right now to help get you stable but that’s nowhere near enough to fix the problem. And that’s not to mention the bruises all over your body and your broken wrist.”

“S’not broken anymore,” Peter mumbled, trying to defend himself.

“So not the point kid,” Mr. Stark replied. “It was broken and it didn’t heal properly. And we need to address where it came from and why you didn’t come to me, or at least call Happy. We can start there, then we can talk about the bruises on your arms and the severe malnutrition.”

It was only when Mr. Stark mentioned the bruises that Peter realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt, there was a blanket over him, but his arms and chest were bare for everyone to see. He felt himself blushing again, he was feeling ashamed about everything. He couldn’t tell Mr. Stark what a burden he was and how his selfishness had caused all of these injuries.

Mr. Stark's face softened, seeing Peter’s discomfort. “It’s okay kid. We don’t have to talk about it all right now. How about we start with something a little bit easier. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for nearly a month. You haven’t been in the suit, so I couldn’t talk to Karen until today, and I was able to get your address and track you through her but didn’t want to go scaring you Aunt, and her husband,” Mr. Starks eyebrow quirked as he said ‘husband' "by showing up at your front door. You didn’t get on the internet at all until today, and I am guessing it is because you went back to school. Are you avoiding me? And why don’t you have a cell phone anymore?” Mr. Stark asked.

“I do have a phone,” Peter chose to answer the easiest question, realizing Happy hadn't really filled Mr. Stark in. His gaze wandered around the room, glancing over all the medical equipment that confirmed he was most definitely in the medley, if the IV hadn’t been evidence enough of that. He finally landed on the backpack that someone must have grabbed, which was sitting on the couch next to Mr. Starks StarkPad. “It’s in my backpack.” Peter moved to sit up, intending to grab his backpack, but Mr. Stark put a hand on his chest and pushed him back down. “Stay,” Mr. Stark said, his brow furrowed in confusion, but he moved over to the couch and rummaged through Peter’s bag. Peter sighed, not appreciating the man going through all of his things. After moment, Mr. Stark pulled out Peter’s old flip phone, and to Peter’s surprised, pulled out a notebook and then Peter’s suit as well.

“Phone first,” Mr. Stark said, turning back to Peter with all three items in his hand, “I am not sure that this actually counts as a phone. No wonder I couldn’t find it, it didn’t even occur to me to look for something other than a smartphone. I didn’t even know that phones like this still existed.” Mr. Stark muttered the last bit to himself as he stared at the device in confusion, but Peter still heard him.

“It’s cheaper, smartphones are expensive,” Peter muttered, feeling embarrassed for the thousandth time since he had arrived at the tower.

Mr. Stark looked at him unbelievingly, “Isn’t your new dad a doctor or something, I would think he could afford a better phone than this.”

Peter flinched hard at the word ‘dad’ and Mr. Stark seemed to realize his mistake.

“Sorry kid, that was a bit insensitive. This Matt guy, I checked him out, he’s a doctor and he does pretty well for himself. And I may have checked up on your Aunt too, just wanted to make sure everything was alright,” Mr. Stark tried to justify his meddling, “and she hasn’t exactly been hurting since getting married. She’s not paying rent anymore, and that means her savings account pretty comfortable.”

“You looked at her bank account???” Peter asked disbelievingly.

“Kid, I was really worried. I didn’t want to barge into your house, or call your Aunt, or go too far like that in case you just needed time to adjust to everything, but I needed to make sure you were being taken care of. I didn’t invent time travel to have you come back and be miserable. Although apparently my checks weren’t enough because you are a disaster.” Mr. Stark said.

Peter felt his breath catch in his chest and he stared at Mr. Stark. The man had just implied that Peter was part of his motivation for saving the world, and that was just too wild to imagine. Peter was a burden, he wasn’t the type of person you risked your life to save, he was the one who was supposed to be saving other people…

Mr. Stark must have noticed his shock. He smiled at Peter, “You don’t think I would go to all that work just because kid. I messed up the first time, should have been a better mentor to you, should have been around. I wanted a second chance.” Mr. Stark's voice had gone softer toward the end and he was looking at Peter with something that was uncomfortably like ‘love’ in his eyes.

Peter’s mouth was hanging open in shock by this point. He couldn’t believe it. Mr. Stark had hugged him on the battlefield, sure, but that moment had been emotionally charged anyway, he didn’t want to read too much into it. He literally could not comprehend the idea that any would save the world because of him. A month of living with Matt had conditioned him to believe the opposite.

“Kid…Peter,” Mr. Stark corrected himself, and Peter almost fell out of bed at that. The man never used his first name, “can you please tell me what is going on? I can’t fix things if I don’t know what they are, and I desperately need to fix this.”

Peter, to his utter humiliation, felt tears springing up and despite his best effort, they started to fall down his face.

Mr. Stark walked over and dropped Peter’s stuff at the foot of the bed before wrapping him in a hug. Peter melted into the man’s embrace, the exhaustion and stress of the past month were pouring out of him. It was the first time he had let himself really feel anything since coming back, and the moment he let go, he couldn’t stop the tears.

Tony just stood there, holding Peter and rubbing a hand along his back and raking his fingers through the kid's curls, for as long as it took. Once he felt Peter’s sobs subside, he put his hands on Peter’s shoulders and lifted the kid slightly so that he could meet his eyes. They were still glimmering with tears, despite how much the kid had cried.

Tony wanted to say something, but while he was trying to gather his thoughts, the door to the medley swished open and Happy walked in with a tray of food in his hands, followed closely by Helen. Tony dropped one of his hands to turn and face the newcomers but kept one hand comfortingly on Peter’s shoulder.

Happy put the food down on a table next to Peter and moved out of the way. Helen walked over and introduced herself.

“Hi Peter, I’m Dr. Cho, but you can call me Helen.” She said, her voice soothing, “I just want to check you over again, and talk about some of these injuries and treatments.”

Peter nodded, and but seemed hesitant. “I, um, I’m not…well, I am, I’m” Peter stuttered. Mr. Stark squeezed his shoulder. “I already told her kid, she knows about your spider problem, it seemed like necessary information for her to treat you, but don’t worry, she works with the Avengers all the time and your secret is safe with her.” He explained.

Helen nodded at this. “He’s right, I’m not telling anyone. So speaking of your powers, Tony mentioned that you had heightened senses, a high metabolism, and accelerated healing. Am I missing anything important?” She asked.

“No, that’s pretty much it. I mean, I stick to things I guess, but that doesn’t really seem relevant.” Peter said. Helen raised her eyebrow in curiosity but didn’t comment, just nodded.

“Okay then. I would love to run some tests to better understand how your body works, take some blood and such, but from what I understand right now, I would assume your healing isn’t working correctly because of malnourishment and exhaustion.”

Tony’s face tightened and his hand squeezed Peter’s shoulder again at Helen’s words. The kid was practically killing himself and Tony had missed it. Happy had a frown on his face as well. After the incident with the Vulture, he had felt a responsibility for the kid and it didn’t sit well with him to see the kid so vulnerable.

“We can correct the malnutrition easily enough, though it will take time. I have Bruce working on synthesizing some ‘protein powder’” She used air quotes around ‘protein powder,’ Peter guessed it was something slightly more complicated than that, “which will help you meet your caloric and nutritional needs. It’d be better for you to eat more and get calories naturally, but with the speed of your metabolism, I think this is the best way for you to at least catch-up.” She explained.

Peter nodded. That would make things a lot easier. He could never eat enough with Matt around, and his anxiety had been so out of control that he hardly ever felt hungry. If he could get the calories he needed some other way, that’d be great.

“Before we move on from that,” Helen continued, “I do want to understand how we got to this point. How have things been going since you’ve been back, Peter?”

Peter started, surprised by the direction that her questioning had gone. He had thought they would drop the issue, but apparently not. He wasn’t sure if her question was just about food or if she had meant something broader, but seeing the intense look he was getting from all the adults in the room, he chose to focus on the food part.

“I’m eating, just not enough I guess. I mean, I eat meals with everyone, and snack throughout the day, I guess I didn’t realize I wasn’t getting enough. I’ve never really thought about how much I need to eat with my metabolism. I guess I need to be better about it,” Peter explained. It wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t completely true. He did eat what May cooked for him and he ate with Matt as well, but he was always careful to eat less than everyone else, Matt’s eyes were always on him and the man was always reminding him of what a financial burden he was.

Helen nodded, though Tony wasn’t as quick to accept the answer considering this hadn’t been a problem for Peter before the snap, but now wasn’t the time to press the kid.

“Right, well I understand. We will work on putting together a better plan. Bruce and I will collect some more information and then we can help you to understand better what your body needs.” Hellen offered, smiling at Peter.

Peter nodded, “That’d be great,” he said, happy to have appeased the woman with his answer.

“Moving on, sleep. When was the last time you slept?” She asked.

Peter blushed, “Last night.” He answered, which wasn’t untrue. She had asked when, not for how long. In truth, Peter hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of consecutive sleep since before the snap. He was always waking up from nightmares and rarely was able to go back to sleep. When he woke up, his whole body was always aching and his mouth tasted like ash as though he was reliving the dusting.

Helen looked at him with an amused grin, seeming to realize her mistake. “Let me rephrase that,” she said, “how much sleep have you been getting every night?”

Peter blushed at being caught so easily. He wanted to lie, but at the same time, he was exhausted and his guard was down, he honestly felt like he needed to tell someone.

“An hour or two at a time, maybe four or five over the course of a night.” He said, committing to telling the whole truth about this one thing.

Mr. Stark sucked in a harsh breath hearing this and his eyes looked sadly down at Peter.

Helen nodded, either she was not surprised or she was not letting her surprise show. “I see,” she said, “can you maybe explain why you aren’t really sleeping.”

Peter nodded, and hesitated for a moment, then said, “nightmares.” His voice so quiet that Helen actually leaned in to hear him.

“Nightmares?” She repeated back to him, as though she was just verifying his response, her face held no judgment. Peter nodded.

“Okay, that’s not uncommon for someone in your, profession,” she smiled as she said the word profession. “Would you mind going into a bit more detail about them though. I’m not trying to pry, but it would be helpful to understand what’s causing them to best be able to help you.”

Peter again hesitated, not really sure what to say and Helen seemed to understand his hesitation.

“Is it the same nightmare or different ones,” She asked, hoping to prompt and answer by asking specific questions that might be easier for Peter to answer.

“Mostly the same, a different one every now and then,” Peter answered.

“Okay,” she said. “Is it Spider-man related,” she asked.

Peter felt himself shrugging and then stopped, realizing that he most definitely did not want to admit that Peter Parker was having nightmares, that would raise some unnecessary questions.

Peter hoped that if he was specific and volunteered some information, it would prevent anyone from questioning his earlier slip. If he was vulnerable about the things he could share, it might keep people focused on those things instead of what's really wrong. Clearly nobody was going to believe him if he said 'I'm fine' so he'd have to give up something so that he could at least control the information and be convincing. “Spider-man. Titan, I guess,” he answered. Mr. Stark visibly flinched at that confession, probably remembering the events on Titan. Peter supposed they were probably as traumatic to watch as they were to go through. Seeing people disappear into nothing around you had to be a bit off-putting. Peter could feel that Mr. Stark was staring at him still, his gaze boring into the back of Peter’s head and seeming to see right through Peter’s diversion tactics though, but the man didn’t say anything so Peter took that as a win.

Helen nodded, “I know it might be personal, but can you tell me what specifically on Titan?”

Peter took a deep breath and then nodded and began, in a barely audible voice, “Getting dusted. I hurt so much, and when I wake up my body is always aching all over as if it happened again.”

At this, Mr. Stark visibly tensed and he turned Peter toward him so that they were finally making eye contact.

“What do you mean it hurt, Peter?” Mr. Stark's voice was the shaky one now, he seemed ready to have a breakdown of his own.

Peter was confused, he hadn’t heard anyone else mention remembering anything, but it hadn’t seemed at all surprising that he had felt it.

He took another deep breath and then slowly explained, trying to be delicate so as not to further upset Mr. Stark. “I was dissolving, but it was like my body was trying to fight it and put me back together. It felt like every part of me was tugging apart and pulling back together. I can’t really explain it, it just really hurt. I mean, I remember it that way, maybe I’m exaggerating,” Peter tried to backtrack once he saw the shocked expression on all the adult's faces.

Mr. Stark had pulled Peter into a box crushing hug. “I’m so sorry,” He mumbled into Peter’s hair, “I had no idea. I am so sorry you have been dealing with that. Nobody else even remembers it. I should have checked on you, privacy be damned. I should have known. You should never have had to go through that alone.”

After another quick squeeze, Mr. Stark released Peter, and Peter was alarmed to see what looked like tears glinting in Mr. Stark's eyes. This did not line up with the man he had known before the snap, but he supposed a lot can change about a person in five years.

Helen cleared her throat, diffusing the tension of the moment and drawing everyone’s gaze back to her.

“Thank you very much for trusting us, Peter.” She said softly. “I’m really sorry to hear that this has been going on. If you don’t mind, I’d like to run some tests so we can figure out if the pain your feeling is a phantom pain from the nightmare or potentially a side effect of the snap that you are feeling. It is just as likely that the pain is triggering the nightmare, not the other way around.” She explained.

Peter hadn’t thought of this. He had assumed he was imaging the pain, but he supposed it made sense. If he was in that much pain, his subconscious might take him back to Titan where he experienced it. He nodded at Helen. “What kind of tests exactly?” He asked.

She smiled and looked a bit apologetic, “Well, we will do some scans and bloodwork to start. But if you’d allow it, I’d like to do a sleep study. We can monitor your brain activity while you sleep and if you have a nightmare…”

“I will.” Peter interrupted. There wasn’t a night that went by where he didn’t. He was still facing Helen so he didn’t see the look of devastation on Tony’s face at this confession.

“Right, well, when you have a nightmare,” Helen continued, composing herself even though the statement broke her heart, “We will be able to see whether the pain receptors trigger first.” She explained.

“Okay,” Peter said, “I’m not sure how we can do that though. I think May would notice if I was missing that long.”

“I can help explain everything to your Aunt, Peter,” Mr. Stark offered.

Peter cut him off before the man could say anything else. “No. May does not need to know about this. I am not going to be more of a burden to her by whining about some stupid nightmares,” Peter spit out the word ‘nightmares’ in a derisive tone, as though they were pathetic and unworthy of this trouble.

Tony was taken aback by the vitriol in the kid's voice. And his adamance that May not be told.

“Peter,” Tony tried, hoping to get the kid to see reason, “I’m sure May would _want_ to know this was going on. It isn’t a burden. She loves you kid.”

“No,” Peter cut him off again. His voice was stronger than it had been since he had gotten to the tower. “If that’s the way you want to do it, then I won’t. You can’t make me.”

“Okay Peter,” Helen cut in before Tony could say anything else. “How about we decide on something else to tell you aunt until you are ready.” She didn’t want to allow the kid to keep such a big secret from his family, but she could see by the look in his eyes that he was serious, and in her professional opinion, it was more important to help the kid than it was to tell his aunt right now.

Tony was ready to fight her on this. He was a parent now and he would want to know if Morgan had a paper cut, let alone something this serious going on. And they hadn’t even touched on the kid's other injuries, which were causing Tony a lot of anxiety. Before he could cut in, Helen shot him a look that said ‘shut up, let it go, and we can talk about this later,' and Tony resigned himself to go along with it for now. It was most important that Peter got help, they could figure out the last bit later.

Peter was nodding. “I will tell her I am spending the night at Ned’s. Ned knows about Spiderman, I will ask him to cover for me, tell him I have a Spiderman thing, which isn’t even a lie, and he won’t ask any more questions. It has to be the weekend though, I don’t think May would let me go to Ned’s on a weeknight.”

The adults nodded, accepting Peter’s idea.

“Okay,” Tony caved. “I will have Happy pick you up from school on Friday. Ask your aunt about spending the whole weekend with Ned, that way we have more time to figure this out. You can stay here. Upstairs, not in the medbay obviously.”

Peter was confused by the 'upstairs' statement but nodded. “I’ll ask. I mean, I can’t promise she will say yes, or that Matt won’t have an issue or something, but I’ll ask.”

“Right, well let me go get you a new phone and then you can text me once you know for sure. If that doesn’t work, I will come up with something else, or kidnap you or something. Kidding, just kidding,” Tony said defensively, seeing the glares that he got from Helen and Happy and Peter’s panic at the word ‘kidnap.’

“We also need to re-break and properly set his wrist,” Helen added, now that the first issue was resolved. “We will take blood today so that Bruce and I can synthesize a better painkiller, I doubt a normal one would work on him so that we can do that this weekend as well.”

Peter nodded to this though Tony was pained by the idea of intentionally hurting the kid, even if it was going to do good in the long haul.

“Peter, could you explain to us where your injuries came from?” Helen asked kindly.

Peter had been thinking about an answer to what was an inevitable question at this point and tried to be as convincing as possible.

“Some are from an incident or two that I was involved in,” he started, grateful that his voice didn’t waver despite his nerves, “it’s New York, muggings, petty thefts, those kinds of things. And a few are from school. I’m not the most popular kid and things get a bit chaotic in the halls. I’ve been shoved into a few lockers since we went back, and nobody knows about the Spider-man thing so I just try and let it happen so I don’t give anything away, the bruises usually fade pretty quickly.”

Helen nodded as he spoke and Peter refused to look over to Mr. Stark or Happy to see their response.

“Okay, thanks for telling us. If school continues to be an issue, I do hope you will involve an adult and ask for help, but once we get you eating properly, all of these should heal on their own. I will go ahead and take out you IV now,” Helen said. “If you could eat the sandwich that Happy brought you and drink your orange juice too, I think you are good to go for now. We should have that protein powder ready for you this weekend too. In the meantime, please try to eat enough to at least keep you alive until then,” She said, somewhat jokingly at the end.

She proceeded to remove the IV and then patted Peter on the arm.

“I’m around the tower if you need anything, please don’t hesitate to come by. I can treat just about any injury,” Helen offered, before nodding at Tony and Happy and turning to leave.

“You heard her kid,” Tony said, a forced lightness in his voice, “Eat the sandwich and then we can head upstairs.”

Peter nodded and picked up the tray. He wasn’t hungry, and it felt weird to eat with Happy and Tony just watching him, but he didn’t want any more questions, he was shocked that Tony hadn't already questioned him further about his 'incidents.' Happy and Tony seemed to sense that Peter was uncomfortable eating in front of them and so Tony picked up the items he had dropped at the foot of Peter’s bed and moved back over to the couch, Happy following him. Once they were over there, the two started having a quiet discussion. Peter could have listened in, but he was exhausted and at this point, he really didn’t want to know what they were talking about.

He choked down the sandwich as fast as he could. It tasted like ash in his mouth, but pretty much everything did these days.

He crumbled up the plastic and the noise seemed to draw the older men’s attention back to him.

“Ready to go underoos,” Tony asked. Petter nodded and moved to get out of bed. Tony rushed to his side and put a hand on his elbow. “Easy there kid, don’t want you to pass out again. Just take it slow for me.” Peter was embarrassed by Tony’s hovering, but he still felt a little drained.

Happy picked up Peter’s things and Tony’s Starkpad and followed behind Tony and Peter as they made their way out of the medbay and into the elevator.

“Living room, Fri,” Tony said to the ceiling.

“Of course, Boss,” Friday responded and then the elevator started moving up.

When they stopped and the doors opened, Peter’s jaw fell open. This was Tony Stark’s house. Or at least one of them he supposed. It wasn’t as extravagant as he had expected in some ways, but everything in the room was high quality, and the view through the wall of glass windows had to be the most expensive view in New York City.

Peter was trying to take it all in when he heard a high pitched, “DADDY!” And a blur raced toward them and latched on to Tony’s leg. The man stumbled a bit but didn’t release his grip on Peter.

“Hey Morgana, I have someone here for your to meet,” Tony said.

This was Tony Stark's kid. The whole world really had turned upside down, Peter thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Tony and Peter interaction :) 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want because hearing that people are actually reading this story brings me so much joy :)


	9. A Bit of an Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally gets to have a one-on-one conversation with Peter and he has a lot of questions for the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will come a day when I post something outside of the hours of 1 AM - 3 AM...today is not that day. A longer wait but a pretty long chapter this time and lots of Peter and Tony and heartfelt emotional conversations!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

Morgan stayed latched to Tony’s leg and Peter tried to extricate himself from the man’s grasp, but he kept a grip on Peter’s arm and didn’t seem phased by the child clinging to him like a koala as he negotiated all three of them toward the couch. Happy followed and dropped Peter’s stuff on the coffee table. Tony gently pushed Peter down onto the couch and then reached down and picked up Morgan.

“Morgana, this is Peter. Peter, meet my daughter, Morgan.” Tony said, looking between the two with a huge smile on his face. A smile that Peter had never seen before. This is what it must look like when Tony was really truly happy, something that the man had never achieved before the snap. Peter added this to his ever-growing list of why the world had been a better place without him but tried not to let it show.

“Hi Morgan, it’s really nice to meet you,” Peter said, waving at the girl who had wound herself around Tony like a sloth.

Morgan squirmed in her dad's arms, leaning forward toward Peter, only kept from falling by Tony’s arm around her waist. “Hiya Peter! Daddy’s been promising I could meet you _forever_ ,” she emphasized the word in the dramatic way only a four-year-old could.

“Alright kiddo,” Tony said and it took Peter a second to realize that Tony wasn’t talking to him, ”As much as I’m sure you want to get to know Peter, he and I have to talk. Why don’t you ask Happy if he will come and play tea party with you instead, how’s that sound?”

Peter almost fell off the couch as Morgan nodded to the suggestion and practically lept out of Tony’s arms, landing on the couch and then rolling to the floor. She jumped up, a ball of energy, and grabbed Happy’s hand to start pulling him out of the room.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” The man said. Peter could not believe that Happy Hogan was willingly being led to a _tea party_ by a 4-year-old.

Tony must have seen the shock on his face, “She’s got everyone wrapped around her finger. Pretty sure Pepper’s the only person in the world who has successfully told her no. I know I’ve never managed it.” Tony said, that smile still plastered on his face.

“Anyway,” Tony turned back toward Peter, “I need to grab you a new phone for starters. Do you need a laptop too?” Tony asked, not waiting for an answer before standing, turning, and starting to walk out of the room.

“Wait, Mr. Stark!” Peter tried to yell after the man, “I really don’t need a phone and I definitely don’t need a laptop!”

Tony gave a dismissive wave over his shoulder. “Too bad kid, you got a color preference?” He yelled back. Peter didn’t answer and Tony disappeared around the corner. He came back a moment later with two boxes.

He brought them over to Peter and sat down next to him before starting to open the smaller box. “This is the new StarkPhone. I think it’s coming out at Christmas. I wholeheartedly would support it if you want to brag about it at school or something since the kids already know you had an internship here before the snap and you are all around too modest and should rub your intelligence in their faces every now and again. But if you want to keep quiet about it, the outside is the same, it’s only the operating system and battery that are different. And this one’s different anyway. I make a few myself and enable them with AI and whatnot. Give me a minute,” he said, grabbing the StarkPad that Happy had dropped next to Peter’s stuff. Tony plugged the phone into the StarkPad and then typed something in, before setting them both down and moving to open the second box.

“I am downloading Karen,” Tony explained. “I figured you’d prefer that to Friday. Though you can still get to Friday through Karen if you need to.”

“Mr. Stark, you can’t do this,” Peter tried. He was overwhelmed and couldn’t fathom why Ironman was giving him a one-of-a-kind phone that probably cost more than Peter and May’s apartment. Or at least their old apartment, Peter had no idea how much the new one cost.

Tony smirked and made no move to stop unboxing the laptop. “I’m Tony Stark, I can do whatever I want.” He said flippantly, although Peter noticed that it was said with humor and the usual tone of arrogance wasn’t there, this really was a different man.

“You don’t understand Mr. Stark,” Peter tried to decide how he could explain this, “Matt, he doesn’t know about any of this, he’ll ask a lot of questions and I…” Peter paused, not knowing how to say he would be in a lot of trouble without making Mr. Stark suspicious.

“Kid, did you read your email at school?” Tony asked, finally looking up from the laptop. Peter had forgotten all about his email, but now that Tony mentioned it, he recalled the acceptance letter from Stark Industries for an internship he had once again, not applied for.

“The internship. I forgot. I didn’t know if you knew about that,” Peter said.

Tony looked at him in amusement. “You didn’t think I knew about the company I own offering my favorite superhero an incredibly coveted and very real internship?” Tony asked.

“But Stark Industries doesn’t hire high school interns!” Peter exclaimed, “I didn’t…I thought…I…wow.” Peter stuttered. “But Mr. Stark,” he continued, “I don’t deserve that. There must be loads of other people far more qualified than me…” Peter stumbled over his words.

Tony frowned at this and put a hand up to stop Peter’s rambling. “First off,” Tony said, his voice was authoritative but not harsh, “You absolutely do deserve this and you are the most qualified for the job.” Peter opened his mouth to argue, “a-ba -bup,” Tony stopped him, “do not argue with me, I’m a genius. Besides, I hacked all of your school files and reviewed you entrance exams and IQ tests, you are a genius kid and I wouldn’t lie about it. And honestly, we are going to have to do something about the self-deprecating thing that you have going on. You are not a burden, you deserve for good things to happen to you. Capiche?”

Peter was dumbstruck and found himself nodding because he honestly didn’t know what else to do.

“Anyway, you can tell Doctor Matt that you are an intern and these are standard issue or something. Which reminds me, I have your badge around here somewhere. Friday, where is spider-kids badge.” Tony asked.

“In the office, on your desk, precisely where Mrs. Potts told you it would be,” Friday replied, her tone was sassy for a computer.

“Thank Fri, and cut the sass will ya?” Tony joked.

Peter just watched as Tony opened the laptop and typed away. “You should have Karen here too,” Tony explained as he kept typing. Peter just accepted this. He had no fight left in him.

“Alrighty,” Tony finished typing, shut the laptop and didn’t bother to hand it to Peter, he just slipped it straight into Peter’s backpack and then picked up the phone, unhooking it from the tablet and passing that over to Peter. “Well, we got that taken care of. Next on the list, let me go grab your badge from the office.” Tony stood up and walked out of the room again and Peter looked down at the phone in his hand, turning it over to admire the sleek design before tapping the home button. The screen lit up and Karen’s voice came out of the speaker. “Hello Peter, how are you?” Karen asked.

Peter couldn’t explain why this particular thing was going to push him over the edge, but he felt overwhelmed for the hundredth time today and found himself tearing up. “Hey Karen,” he choked out.

Tony came back into the room, saving Peter from getting too emotional. He handed Peter a badge on a lanyard. Peter quickly pulled himself together, grateful that Tony either didn’t notice his distress or was playing it cool. He looked down at the badge in his hand and saw his school picture from freshmen year and then a gold stripe across the bottom. “What’s the gold band for?” Peter asked.

“Clearance level,” Tony said offhandedly. Peter felt a twinge in his stomach, guessing that this was probably a bigger deal than Tony was letting on. “What exactly is a ‘gold’ clearance level?” Peter tried to ask.

“It’s the clearance level that you have,” Tony replied flippantly. Peter sighed, now he knew it was something he didn’t want to know.

Tony sat back down next to Peter and turned to face him.

“Now we’ve got that all out of the way, I noticed you haven’t been going out as Spiderman up until today and want to talk about that,” Tony said.

“Geeze, really going through the checklist of things you think are wrong with me tonight, aren’t we,” Peter tried to joke.

Tony at least had the courtesy to look sheepish at Peter’s comment, “Sorry kid, I told you I’ve been worried. If I had been able to talk to you before now, it might not be everything at once, but it’s not that easy to change the subject on me. What’s up?”

Peter sighed and resigned himself to giving Mr. Stark some sort of explanation at least. “If you really have to know, I just needed a break, okay?” He didn’t feel the need to add about the panic attack when he put his mask on.

Tony nodded, “That’s definitely allowed, I just wanted to check. Does the suit need any repairs while you are here?” Peter shrugged, he didn’t even know. “On that note, do you have the iron spider suit with you or just the original?”

“Just the original,” Peter replied, “the other one, it uhh, I just prefer the original.” Peter didn’t add that the mere thought of that suit would send him into a panic. He didn’t even have to put a mask on for that.

“Well, let me take a look at it. You can leave the suit here for the week since you haven’t been using it much and I wouldn’t feel good about letting you out in it anyway with your health the way it is.” Tony said.

Peter rolled his eyes, wanting to protest that he was ready to go out now, but stopped himself from giving a snarky replied. He had gotten too comfortable and forgotten himself over the past few hours with Tony. He was being disrespectful and he would eventually be punished for it. “Sorry,” Peter mumbled, letting his eyes fall to his lap.

The smile on tony’s face fell. “What are you apologizing for this time?”

“I was being disrespectful, I rolled my eyes at you,” Peter explained.

“Good grief kid, you must think I am a royal jerk. I actually think it is rude to not be sassy, how’s that?” Tony tried to lighten the mood, filing this interaction away as another thing to worry about and look into later. Peter cracked a smile, so that was something.

Peter looked at him thoughtfully. “You really are a dad,” Peter said to Tony, looking at him very seriously. This was the greatest compliment Tony thought he had ever heard. “Not that I would really know what a Dad is supposed to be like,” Peter tried to joke self deprecatingly to the lighten the mood but his joke fell flat. Tony’s heart broke a little bit at the confession.

Tony reached out and patted the kid's knee. He decided the best thing to do was to change the subject and let the kid off this time. One of these days, he was going to have to have a heart to heart with the kid about his self-worth and how many people cared about him. Tony particularly wanted to emphasize his own feelings at some point. He hadn’t realized how much he cared about the kid until he was gone. Once Tony had Morgan, he’d realized the worry he had felt for Peter during the ferry incident and whole vulture thing had been some sort of parental feeling and he felt overwhelmingly guilty he had never expressed that to Peter. The kid was vulnerable right now though and the last thing he needed was another emotional shock.

“Can I bug you about one more thing, and then I promise we can watch a movie of something easy,” Tony asked.

This felt like a bit of an interrogation. Peter was uncertain about what to say, he was suspicious of the fact that Tony was asking him first, and he was overall just confused by the man’s behavior in general.

“I guess,” Peter relented.

“Where did those bruises really come from Pete?” Tony asked, his voice gentle as though Peter would break if he spoke too loudly.

Peter felt a twinge of panic and worked hard to quell it and prevent another full-blown panic attack from occurring. Tony seemed to sense that Peter was anxious, he reached up a hand and starting rubbing comforting circles on Peter’s back.

“Take a minute kid, I’m not in a rush, I am just worried,” Tony said softly.

Peter took a deep breath. “It’s not as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be. I haven’t been wearing the suit but I’ve still been trying to help out you know, and I’ve gotten myself in a few, uh, skirmishes you could say. As Peter Parker I mean, not as Spider-man. And you know how awful kids can be in school and all that, and I can’t fight back against the bullies because I couldn’t before so I shouldn’t know. I’ve told you that,” Peter explained. Looking at Tony with what he hoped was a face of sincerity. He did not need this new dad-Tony getting too interested in what was going on at home. Peter didn’t even know why he was protecting this secret. Tony had told him repeatedly over the past few hours that he wasn’t a burden, but Peter still couldn’t help but think that the man would feel differently if he knew how often Peter had to be punished at home.

Tony wanted to believe the kid, but it was still really bugging him. The kid was smart, a certifiable genius, they had already discussed this, and though the innocent kid had always seemed like a bad liar, that didn’t mean he couldn’t come up with a convincing story under pressure. Tony had seen the panic in his eyes when he’d asked the question. He had reviewed the footage from the elevator. When Friday had announced his bruises, Peter had dissolved into a panic attack. Peter was afraid of someone finding out where they came from and that made Tony want to know more than anything. The kid was fifteen though, there wasn’t much Tony could do until Peter asked for help. He could be there for him, make sure that the kid knew he was around and he would listen, make sure he knew that Tony wanted to help. And he would keep a closer eye because he wouldn’t let Peter get really hurt simply because the boy was stubborn.

His mind was already spinning with ideas for how he could keep better track of Peter’s health and vitals when he wasn’t in the suit. A watch, he considered. He had one, he had an anklet for Morgan, and Pepper had one too. Both of them knew the function of the device, and he didn’t think Peter would go for it, but he was probably going to do it anyway.

Tony nodded at Peter, letting the kid off the hook for now. “Okay, I believe you. I don’t like the idea of you getting pushed around at school and if I thought you’d let me do something, I would, but I respect you, Peter. I hope you know that you can come to me though. With anything that is going on in your life. Whether it is at school, or at home, or if you just want to talk about the latest Star Wards movie. I’m here and I want to listen. Okay?” Tony was so sincere that Peter just nodded, completely unable to form a response.

“Okay,” Tony smiled, seeming to be pleased with Peter’s response, “what movie do you want to watch then?”

Peter let out a breath and actually let himself smile again. “Actually,” he said, “I really need to get home. I’ve already missed dinner and I don’t want anyone to worry.”

Tony frowned, genuinely sad the kid had to leave. “Well, Morgan will be very sad that she doesn’t get the chance to play with you. It has been the only thing she’s talked about since I told her you were back, and she will also be displeased if Happy goes to take you, but I suppose I should be an ‘adult’ and let you be responsible and go home.”

“You don’t need to bother Happy, I can just take the subway.” Peter offered, although as he thought about it he realized that after the trip to school today, he was probably almost out of money on his metro card. He had only used it on that one trip with Matt and then to and from school for this first week, but the man hadn’t put very much on it to begin with. Peter really needed to get a job so he could stop bothering Matt or May for money. Tony seemed to sense Peter’s hesitation at making good on his offer.

“It isn’t a problem kid. I’ll have Happy take you. You’re still not tip-top, and I’ll feel better knowing you aren’t wandering the street. I know you are coming on Friday but I was hoping for you to have lab time on Monday/Wednesday/Friday for the internship if you are okay with it. On Fridays we can play it by ear though if you have things to do with friends or whatever, I want you to prioritize having some sort of balance in your life. Or if you don’t and you want to hang out and maybe stay for a night or something, that would work too.” Tony explained.

“I have decathlon practice Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday for an hour after school.” Peter explained, not even addressing how wild it was that Mr. Stark was offering for him to come to the tower to ‘hang out’ or spend the night.

“That’s fine, I can have Happy pick you up after practice if you want or we can do it on Tuesday instead. I want to introduce you to some of the different R&D departments and let you try out working in a couple of different groups before you decide where you really want to work. And I plan to monopolize your time while I can so you’ll work with me some as well. I’m not at the tower all that often, we are normally at the lake house, but since I have been recovering we stuck close to the city. I think we will stay for another month or so and then I will still be around to do work for SI, just not all the time. You could even come to the lake if your aunt was okay with it. I’m still around for anything you need though, only 10 minutes away by suit. And we can make a better plan for that when the time comes.” Tony’s tone was reassuring.

Peter tried to process everything. He knew Happy had mentioned the lake house and he wasn’t sure how it made him feel to know that Mr. Stark wouldn’t be in the city, but he supposed he didn’t really have a right to expect anything from the man. He hesitated for another second, “I would love to,” Peter finally said, but now that he had thought about it more, he was pretty sure he needed to get a job and wouldn’t have that much time, “I, uh, you see,” he tried to figure out how to explain his predicament.

“Spit it out kid,” Tony said, staring at Peter attentively as if trying to read his thoughts.

“I really need to get a job, so I don’t know that I can come three days a week,” Peter said, speaking so fast that it took Tony a moment to catch up.

“Why do you need a job kid? Most people would consider an internship as a type of job.” Tony asked.

Now Peter was embarrassed. “For the money,” Peter muttered, so quietly that Tony couldn’t hear him.

“Come again,” Tony said.

“I need the money,” Peter said again, a little bit louder.

Tony looked at him incredulously, “I’m a billionaire, kid. I can pay you for the internship. It’s bothering me a little bit that you seem so worried about money. If there is something you need, you can just ask.”

Peter looked at his feet. “It’s not your job Mr. Stark.” He tried to explain to the man.

“Peter, I want to, and it is absolutely my job to take care of my…,” Tony almost said ‘my kids’ but stopped himself, still pretty sure that was a conversation for a later time, “my mentee,” he finished awkwardly. “Please don’t argue with me about this. I will be paying you for the actual work that you do. Honestly, I probably should be paying you already for Spider-manning and the battle in Germany, and then on Titan, and then again at the compound after the snap. I should be buying you a car or something. Probably more like a house at this point.” Tony refused to let Peter feel guilty for needing money. He knew the kid and his aunt had been struggling a bit before the snap, but he had assumed things were going better now. Maybe Peter was so used to the way things had been before that he didn’t feel comfortable asking his aunt?

It was one more thing to add to his list of concerns about the kid. Peter looked like he wanted to protest again.

“It’s a done deal, Peter. I have some paperwork your aunt needs to fill out to make everything with the internship official this time. Fri, ask Hap to come take the kid home. I’ll grab the papers real quick.” Tony stepped out before Peter could voice his opposition again.

Happy walked in a moment later and Tony quickly returned after him with a folder in his hand. Tony passed the folder over to Peter and then gave the kid a one-armed hug and ruffled his hair.

Peter couldn’t help himself, “I could get used to dad-Tony,” Peter mumbled into Tony’s shoulder, thinking he was quiet enough that Tony couldn’t hear him. But Tony did hear him, and his heart practically melted at the admission. Partially because the kid had finally called him Tony and partially because he wanted to help fill a gap in his life for parental figures and hoped that Peter was starting to see that.

Tony released him and then the elevator opened and Peter followed Happy in. “Remember to eat kid!” Tony called out as a last-second reminder. Peter replied with a thumbs up. The door slid closed behind them and the small smile fell from Tony’s face.

This kid, the Peter that had been here today, wasn’t the same Peter from before the snap. Tony had so many regrets about Germany and everything that followed, but no matter how many mistakes he had made, the kid had always pushed back and had a fire in his eyes. This Peter was quiet and skittish, and Tony was going to have to do something about that because he missed his kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to let you all know how much I appreciate everyone's kudos and comments and how it makes my day to hear what everyone thinks and to know that people are reading and enjoying!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want because hearing that people are actually reading this story brings me so much joy :)


	10. An Actual Internship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The start of actual intern-things and Peter spends the night at the tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was unnecessarily difficult to write and ended up being much longer than I expected, but it's here! I'm more excited about the next couple things that I have planned so hopefully those chapters will come a bit easier! And I posted this one right after midnight, so I am improving in the nocturnal-writing department. 
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

When Peter showed May the internship papers, she was genuinely excited for him and immediately signed everything without really looking too closely or asking any questions. Peter had thought she might have some concerns about Mr. Stark, but she didn’t even blink. After her initial outrage finding out the man was enabling his secret super hero-ing behind her back, she had yelled at him for hours and questioned pretty much everything he did with Peter from then on. He appreciated being allowed to go to the tower and everything, but it almost hurt that May didn’t seem that concerned about him anymore. Matt faked some enthusiasm for May’s sake, but still managed to get in a few jabs about “growing up and pulling your weight” and “look who finally got around to getting a job.” He said it with a laugh and a not-so-playful punch to Peter’s arm, and just like with everything else, May didn’t see it for what it was and laughed along at the man’s “jokes.”

Peter told Ned at school the next day and as expected, he freaked out. He didn’t understand it completely, but seeing Ned excited somehow felt more genuine than May’s excitement. Ned also agreed that Peter could “spend the night” on Friday so that he could do something for his internship. When Peter had first asked, Ned wanted to know why he couldn’t tell May the truth since she knew about Spider-man, but Peter had vaguely mentioned that Mr. Stark wanted to work with him on some top-secret Avengers things that he didn’t want May to know about yet and Ned had quickly acquiesced without any further interrogation. Peter almost felt guilty for lying to his best friend, but it was better not to mention that he had to see a doctor, Ned would ask questions and then worry, and Peter wasn’t worth worrying over.

* * *

Peter was surprised when he saw Happy waiting for him after decathlon practice that afternoon. He supposed it was a Wednesday and he hadn’t told Mr. Stark he wouldn’t be coming, but he had just been at the tower yesterday and it felt weird to go from not seeing the man for over a month to seeing him two days in a row. MJ raised her eyebrow at Peter when he waved goodbye to her and Ned to head over to Happy, but otherwise didn’t comment which Peter was grateful for. He could only balance so many lies right now and though he didn’t technically need to lie about this since he had an actual internship, and he had supposedly had one before, he didn’t feel like telling anyone else yet.

Happy got out of the car and moved to open the door for Peter as he walked up. Peter blushed and mumbled, “thanks, but you don’t have to open the door for me. I’m not Mr. Stark or anything,” as he slid into the car. Happy closed the door behind him without responding. It wasn’t until they were both settled that Happy met his eye through the rear-view mirror and said, with uncomfortable sincerity, “I don’t mind kid. It’s my job, and as much as I might have complained before, I really don’t mind.”

Peter couldn’t think of a response to that, so he just stayed silent. Happy peppered him with questions about his school day, even though Peter had seen him the day before, which baffled Peter, but he tried to match the other man’s effort and respond with more than just a one-word answer or a nod.

When they got to the tower, Happy stopped out front this time.

“I’ve got to run another errand. Go ahead into the lobby and to the front desk and give them your name. The intern coordinator should be there to meet you,” Happy explained.

The idea of going into the tower alone made Peter inexplicably nervous, but he wasn’t going to question anything, so he thanked Happy for the ride, waved a quick goodbye, and got out of the car. He paused in front of the doors to Stark Tower. He was grateful he hadn’t bothered to take the badge out of his backpack last night and still had it with him. The lobby looked intimidating, he could see the shiny marble floors and expensive looking décor from out here. He took a deep breath, stealing himself to go in, and then pushed through the rotating door and made his way to the front desk.

He stuttered out his name and that his was an intern to a receptionist who just smiled kindly at him and told him someone would be with him shortly and gestured for him to sit down on one of the couches in the waiting area. Peter was so nervous; he didn’t notice someone was coming toward him until they stood directly in front of him. When he saw their shadow pass over him, he couldn’t help the full body flinch before looking up to meet the eyes of a very gentle-looking woman.

“Sorry for startling you. I’m the intern director, Dr. Mitchell. You must be Peter.” The woman held out her hand and Peter quickly stood to shake it, nodding his head.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Tony has been raving about you, so I am excited to finally meet his mystery protegee.”

A deep blush warmed Peter’s face at her comment. He didn’t know how he felt about hearing that Mr. Stark spoke highly of him to his employees. He knew he would be a disappointment, in the end, he wasn’t all that special and he wasn’t as smart as Mr. Stark was making him out to be, no matter what the man had said to him the day before. He couldn’t bear to think about how easy it would be for him to let everyone down, and shook his head to clear out the thoughts and offer a polite, “It’s my pleasure to meet you, too,” to Dr. Mitchell. That seemed to suffice, Dr. Mitchell asked him about the paperwork, which he pulled out and handed to her, and then discussed some general details and before he knew it he was following her into the elevator and up into the world renowned research labs of Stark Industries.

The afternoon was spent on a tour of all the different labs, meeting different researchers and scientists, and listening to them explain their projects. He met many of the college aged interns and saw everything from the biomedical engineering labs to the theoretical physics group. He hadn’t even known Stark Industries had a theoretical physics group.Peter tried not too be too disruptive during his tour, but couldn’t help some of the questions that he blurted out in his excitement, and was relieved that nobody seemed upset by them. If anything, everyone had been excited to answers his question and talk with him. Peter’s head was spinning and he had a genuine smile plastered onto his face by the time Dr. Mitchell led him back down to the lobby.

“It’s been a pleasure getting to meet you Peter and I am looking forward to getting to work with you. I spoke with Mr. Stark and he mentioned you would be coming in on Mondays and Wednesdays, and sometimes a Friday, though he also you would exclusively be working with him on Fridays whenever possible so I won’t count on that day. He recommended that you start out in the materials development lab, said that might be interesting for you. How does that sound?” Dr. Mitchell asked.

Peter nodded eagerly, “that sounds fantastic!” He was so excited about everything he’d seen, he didn’t even stop to worry about whether his presence would be an invconvienence or if he deserved to be there, he could only think about how amazing it was going to be to work in these labs.

* * *

Peter tried to be quiet as he came into the apartment. He had been fortunate that May was home yesterday, and he didn’t have to deal with Matt really when he got back from the tower. He had already felt on edge after the emotionally draining conversations and wasn’t sure he could have handled too much retribution from Matt for daring to go an unplanned outing to the tower. Today, he wasn’t so lucky. It was nearly 8:00 PM by the time he made it home and night had already fallen. Dr. Mitchell had asked him if he had someone coming to pick him up and he had convincingly told her he did. Up until they got to the lobby, he hadn’t been sure if he was going to see Mr. Stark at all or what he was supposed to do. If he’d encountered his mentor, the man probably would have had Happy drive him home, but without that, he didn’t want to be so audacious as to ask Happy for a ride on his own and opted it would be easier to walk.

His phone had buzzed a few times on his trip home, but he hadn’t bothered to check it, already feeling the waves of anxiety at what was waiting for him. It was just as he anticipated, Matt was sitting at the kitchen table, hands steepled in front of him, staring at the door clearly waiting for Peter.

“It’s about damn time!” he exclaimed as soon as Peter came through the door. “You think you get a job and you all of the sudden don’t have any responsibilities here? You think you can do whatever you want now without asking my permission? If you don’t want to answer to me than that is fine by me. Get the hell out of my house. If you think that I’m going to let your ungrateful ass stay in this apartment if you aren’t pitching in, you are sorely mistaken. You don’t get to go traipsing around the city at all hours. You tell me when you’ll be gone and I can approve it, or not. And if your going to be off doing work for Tony Stark, you better be doing pulling your weight around here. Everyone treats you like a child, coddles you, your technically nineteen, an adult, ao act like it! Do you understand me!” Peter stood frozen in the doorway as the man ranted, his face turning purple the more he yelled. He abruptly stood from the table and walked over to Peter, yanking him harshly into the apartment and slamming the door behind him.

“Don’t stand there like an idiot! Clean up the kitchen and go to bed.” He spat.

Peter flinched and slowly wiggled out of the man’s grasp, making a beeline for the kitchen to clean up whatever dishes or mess that Matt had left. He should have known better than to just go with Happy after school without saying anything to Matt. He should have texted the man or explained. He had talked with May about his schedule but this was Matt’s house and it was Peter needed to remember that. All of his earlier excitement had melted away and Peter didn’t even remember to check his missed text messages. He just finished his chores and went to bed.

* * *

On Friday, Peter was expecting it when he saw Happy waiting for him when he came out of school. He’d made sure that Matt was in the room when he had asked permission to sleep over at Ned’s and though Matt had opened his mouth, most likely to protest it, May had beat him to it and given Peter permission. Peter had waited a moment after until Matt had pasted a smile on his face for May and agreed with his wife. He wasn’t sure how that would hold up, but May would be home when he came back on Saturday and he hoped that he would be in less trouble having at least asked this time.

He hurriedly moved to the waiting car and had slid into the back seat before Happy had time to come around the car and open the door for him. The man huffed a little annoyed and Peter immediately felt worried that he had messed up. He was already anxious about this whole nightmare experiment thing; he didn’t want to start the weekend off by offending Happy.

Happy got back in the car and turned to face Peter with a teasing smile on his face. “Trying to do my job for me, kid?” He asked.

“I’m so sorry, Happy,” Peter began to apologize. Happy’s smile faltered for a moment and then returned, looking a little forced this time. “I’m just teasing. I don’t mind either way. Nothing to apologize for,” he reassured, before turning around.

Peter was anticipating Happy’s questions about his school day based on the previous car rides they’d had, but had not prepared himself for when Happy looked at him in the rearview mirror halfway through the ride and asked, “So, how’d you get home on Wednesday?” Peter had seen the texts from Mr. Stark and Happy on Thursday morning asking where he was and if he was coming up to say hi or if Happy should meet him in the lobby, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Peter was sure this was a trick question but was terrified of trying to lie and wasn’t even sure what the right answer was. His palms started sweating and he rubbed them on his pant legs, “I, uh. I took the subway,” he finally replied, opting for something close to honesty since he didn’t know what else to say. His metro card was almost empty and so he had actually walked, but he was sure that wasn’t what the man wanted to hear.

Happy sighed. “I figured. Next time, just send me a text when you get done if I am not already there. I figured you would go up and say hi to Tony after your tour, otherwise, I would have met you in the lobby. It’s on me for not making that clear. Just, please ask next time, okay.”

Peter nodded, then realized the man might not be able to see him, and added, “okay. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, kid. Everything is not your fault. Let me take the blame for this one.” Happy wasn’t harsh, he sounded tired. Peter felt guilty that he seemed to be causing stress for the man.

When they got to the tower, Happy pulled into the same garage as he had on Tuesday and Peter felt a way of anxiety crashing over him as he remembered how things had played out that day. He tried to focus on breathing deeply to keep from repeating the episode.

When they got in the elevator, Happy told Friday to take them up to the 'common room.' This was not what Peter was expecting. He'd been to Mr. Stark's suite on Tuesday, but he had assumed that they would go straight to a lab or the medbay or something. When the elevator doors opened, it was a room just as extravagant as Tony's living room had been, but with more chaos and mess. There were video game controllers, books, and card games strewn across the couch and coffee table and Peter could see the sink in the attached kitchen was full of dirty dishes. He didn’t know what to do so he just stood in the elevator until Happy put a hand on his back and guided him out and past the common area. He pushed him into a stool at the bar and then moved to the fridge and started pulling out ingredients to make a sandwich. Neither of them spoke. Peter was still mildly confused as to what was going on and Happy seemed content to leave Peter be for now. While Peter was watching Happy work, he heard the elevator doors behind him open and turned around to see Mr. Stark walk out with none other than Bruce Banner. Peter felt his chest tighten in panic, a sensation that was becoming a normal occurrence in his life. He had read all of Doctor Banner's published works on gamma radiation and had idolized the scientist ever since. He wanted to pinch himself to see if this was real.

“Hey kid," Mr. Stark said, walking over to stand in front of Peter who was just staring, frozen with shock. "This is Bruce, he's smart with biology and stuff and is going to hang out with us and help Dr. Cho a bit. She is here if we need her, but in the medbay right now and will go over everything with Brucie later.”

Dr. Banner held out his hand to Peter, "It's nice to finally meet you Peter, Tony has told me a lot about you," he said.

Peter just stared at the hand that was being offered to him, unable to process what the appropriate response would be. Tony chuckled quietly, seeing how off-balance Bruce had put Peter, and after a moment, Bruce dropped his hand. It seemed the sudden motion was enough to knock Peter out of whatever chance he had been in because he jolted and jumped out of his seat, extending his own hand this time which Bruce shook, a look of amusement on his face.

"Oh my gosh, Dr. Banner, sir. I am so sorry. It's such an honor to meet you. I'm such a huge fan. Your work has been an inspiration to me since middle school. I just can't believe I am meeting you in person. I'm so sorry. Really. I should shut up. Sorry." Peter didn’t breath while he rambled and cringed at himself, then firmly shut his mouth and stared at the floor, looking abashed at his enthusiastic response.

Tony had been smirking at how shocked Bruce had been by the kids enthusiasm, but the smile fell from his face when Peter ended his rant with a dejected apology, seeming to think that his admiration of the man was somehow a nuisance.

Bruce met his eye with a questioning look, "it's an honor meeting you too, Peter. And I am flattered to hear that you are interested in my work. No need to apologize for that. I'd love to talk to you about it sometime."

Bruce was meeting the kid for the first time and it had to be surprising to see him go from pure excitement to timid and submissive so quickly, but he had caught on to the kids insecurity and seemed to be doing his best to assuage it, which Tony was grateful for.

Peter muttered another 'sorry' before lifting his head from the floor to actually look at the two men again. Tony wanted to scream, he was so frustrated hearing the kid apologize profusely for existing it seemed like, but knew know wasn't the time to address it.

Peter had all but forgotten about Happy while he was meeting Dr. Banner and so he jumped slightly when a plate slid toward him across the counter. He looked down to see the sandwich Happy had been making and looked back up at him with confusion.

"Eat," Happy instructed. Peter didn't immediately make a move and Happy sighed. "Seriously, I made that for you, it'll hurt my feelings if you don't eat it." That did the trick, Peter sat down and slowly starting eating.

"I've got to go take Pepper to a meeting across town, so I'll leave you all to your science-ing. Call if you need anything," Peter was surprised to see the last comment seemed to be directed at him, not Mr. Stark. Happy seemed to be waiting for some sort of acknowledgement so Peter nodded, and that seemed to appease the man because he headed toward the elevator once he was sure Peter had heard him.

“Anyway," Tony started, drawing Peter's attention back toward him and Bruce, "go ahead and finish your snack. You should have some juice too," Tony moved to the fridge and grabbed tossed a bottle of orange juice at Peter while he spoke. "Once your good, I can show you your room and we can talk through what a 'sleep study' will look like in case you have any questions. Then I thought we could go down to the lab and you could show Bruce some of your web formulas, he's been dying to see them.”

Peter nodded his consent again, starting to subconsciously relax in Mr. Stark's presence, something that did not go unnoticed by the genius. He quickly finished his sandwich and drained the juice, shocked to find that in the absence of his blaring spider sense going off, as it normally was at the apartment, he actually had an appetite.

He stood and and moved to pick up the backpack he had dropped by his chair when he came in, but Mr. Stark beat him to it, grabbing the strap and swinging it over his own shoulder before heading down the hall. Peter followed meekly behind him into a massive bedroom.

"This will be your room for tonight. Your actual room is up on my floor obviously, but it'll be best for Dr. Banner to be on the common floor and have easier access to everything," Tony explained.

He saw Peter's eye roaming the room immediately focus on him when he mentioned "your room" and realized that might have been a bit too much too soon, but it was too late to take it back. The kid was too shocked to say anything though, or maybe was worried about saying something wrong, either way, Peter didn't comment.

Bruce took the opportunity to step in and explain the simple setup. There was no clunky machinery like one might expect, Friday did most of the heavy lifting, the only request was for Peter to wear a special set of pajamas that had microscopic nano sensors throughout to more closely monitor his vitals. Bruce also explained that they wouldn't be in his room or interrupt him unless they had a reason for concern, so he shouldn't really worry about anything other than sleeping like normal.

Peter nodded along while Dr. Banner spoke, a little bit unsure about having his entire body monitored by special pajamas, but figured it was no different than his suit and Karen hadn't tattled on him with his smaller injuries so he would hope Friday wouldn't either. And Mr. Stark already knew about the worst of them anyway.

"Dr. Cho explained to me that we will also need to re-break and properly set your wrist," Dr. Banner continued, "We decided it would be best to do this in the morning, we don't want any residual discomfort from the to interfere with your normal sleep patterns. It shouldn't be too painful, and we prepared a supplement for you that should help boost your healing, but we still want to wait. Does that all sound okay to you?" Peter nodded.

"Great! Well if you think of any questions or anything, don't hesitate to ask." Dr. Banner finished and turned to Tony who had been quiet throughout his explanation.

Tony smiled and clapped his hands together, "Perfect, let's go play in the lab then."

They spent the rest of the afternoon working in the lab and Peter felt himself relaxing even further the longer he was around Mr. Stark. By the time they took a break for dinner, he was comfortable enough to actual ask Dr. Banner some questions while they ate.

Mr. Stark called an end to their lab time a little before 10 PM, which seemed very early to Peter, but he didn't protest. He might have been feeling comfortable, but he still knew his place. They headed back upstairs and Peter was surprised when Mr. Stark got off on the common floor instead of continuing on to his personal level.

"Aren't you going upstairs?" Peter asked.

"Nope. Pepper is back from her meeting by now and she and Morgan are having a special girls-night sleepover. I'm all your for the night, wanted to hang around as moral support or whatever," Mr. Stark explained.

Peter just nodded. He didn't want to admit it because he was afraid he was setting himself up for hurt later, but he was starting to believe that Mr. Stark cared about him and was relieved that he would be around. It was like he really cared about his well being in a way thatnot even May did right now. It was uncomfortable and he tried not to dwell on the idea, but he also didn't fight it.

Dr. Banner told Peter to get ready for bed like normal and that he would talk to him in the morning most likely and Peter went off to do as he was instructed. At this point, he wasn't even surprise when Mr. Stark came into his room as he was brushing his teeth "just to check in and wish him goodnight."

As Peter lay in the most comfortable bed he'd ever been in later that night, he couldn't help but wonder if maybe he would finally get a good nights sleep, completely nightmare free. He hadn't felt so relaxed going to bed since before the snap and this whole exercise might be for nothing. He couldn't bring himself to care though, the appeal of going to bed with a full stomach and actual getting to rest was too strong. He drifted off to sleep with a small smile on his face for the first time since before Thanos.

* * *

He shouldn't have worried about not having a nightmare because it wasn't even midnight when he sat up gasping in his bed, clutching at his middle as his body screamed with pain as though it were being ripped apart. He didn't make a sound, but it didn't matter, Dr. Banner came rushing into his room closely followed by Mr. Stark.

He was in so much pain he barely registered the soothing hand running up and down his back and didn't respond to any of the questions that were being asked. He didn't snap out of it until the blinding pain was interrupted by a new discomfort of a pen light being shone directly into his eyes. He flinched away from the light, curling into the body of whoever was beside him and clenching his shut. All of the sudden his senses were overwhelmed by input. He could hear the humming of electricity that coursed through the entire building underneath the clear sound of Mr. Stark, muttering soothing nonsense into his ear with a hint of panic underlying his otherwise even tone. If he hadn't known the man, he wouldn't probably wouldn't have noticed it. When everything was finally under control, he slowly uncurled himself, pushing the residual ache in his body to the back of his mind as he looked up into the concerned eyes of Dr. Banner.

"You back with us now, Peter?" Dr. Banner asked gently.

Peter nodded.

“That was quite a night terror their kid, and your pain receptors were off the charts. We weren't planning to intervene in any way tonight, but after witnessing that, I think a dose of pain killers would be warranted.”

“I'm fine," Peter said, "it's dulled, not so bad anymore. And I’ve had worse”

Peter felt Mr. Stark flinch behind him at that statement, and Dr. Banner didn't seem convinced, but nodded his head anyway, "Well, I would like to look over all of the physiological results more later, but do you think you could walk me through your nightmare now just so that I understand better?”

Peter was reluctant to share something that felt so personal and to fully admit to what he perceived as a weakness, but the past month had ingrained him with a need to comply with authority and so he did.

When he was done describing the dusting that he was reliving every night in his dreams, he saw that Dr. Banner looked unnaturally pale and seemed at a loss for words. The man quickly collected himself, "I am so sorry you had to go through that. That you continue to have to go through that," he amended, "I will do whatever I can to help. I don't think we need to torture you any further, so if you'd like, I can give you some meds to knock you out and we can reset your wrist tonight. Hopefully, it will help you get some rest and your wrist will be fully healed in the morning. We can kill two birds with one stone.”

That sounded like a great plan to Peter and he said so. The next thing he knew, there was a prick in his arm and a cool drowsiness washed over him, dulling the ache in his body to almost nothing. He started to droop into Mr. Stark who was still sitting next to him and the man chuckled slightly and moved to help Peter lay down fully.

"Go to sleep kid," Tony soothed, running his hand through Peter's hair, "everything always looks better in the morning." And with that, Peter closed his eyes and drifted off.

* * *

"Jesus Christ, Bruce! What the hell was that?" Tony exclaimed once they were back in the common room. Peter was out cold on a heavy dose of IV pain meds and they hoped he would stay that way until Bruce weaned him of in the morning after a good nights rest.

“I don't know Tony," Bruce admitted, his brow furrowed in concern and deep thoughtfulness. "I've never seen anything like it. He was spiking pain receptors for nearly five minutes before he actually woke up, but his brain activity had been off the charts for nearly an hour prior. As soon as he hit REM sleep, he started having nightmares. No wonder he looks so exhausted all the time, I can't imagine he's slept at all since everything went down.”

Tony put his head in his hands, wanting to cry with how helpless he felt. Bruce reached out a hand and started rubbing Tony's back, much that same a Tony had done for Peter earlier. "I know it's a lot, but we will figure it out. The kid definitely needs therapy I think, but in the meantime, I'll get with Cho and we can see if we can synthesize a sleeping aid for him. He couldn't use it all the time, and I don't know that I would him to use it unsupervised at all, but if you could convince him to spend the weekend here, or a few nights a week or something he could at least get a little bit of rest."

Tony nodded, his head still in his hands, "I'll try, kids stubborn though. He doesn't seem to want to ask for help. I felt like something was wrong when I saw him earlier this week, but I had no idea it was this bad. I guess I should have thought about how much trauma he had been through. It's a lot for a grown adult, let alone a fifteen-year-old kid. No wonder he has seemed so off." Tony sat up and Bruce's hand fell back to his side, he was attentively listening as Tony was just thinking out loud now.

"I want to say it makes sense, except I don't get the connection between constantly apologizing for existing and this really severe PTSD he's got going on. I'm not crazy, am I? It seems like there's more to it," Tony looked at Bruce for some validation.

"I can't tell you anything for sure, I am not a psychologist, but trauma manifests itself in all sorts of ways. Maybe there is something entirely different bothering him, it's impossible to say, but I don't think it's far fetched to say that what your seeing is all tied together," Bruce said.

“I guess your right. He mentioned he was having some issues with kids at school, I guess combining that with what we saw tonight might make sense. I'm overreacting," Tony rationalized. "My dad-instincts are just bugging me that I'm missing something and I don't want to let him down again.”

“Tony," Bruce said compassionately, "just let him know you are there for him and that he can come to you if he needs to. I am not saying don't trust your instincts, I am just saying not to completely panic yet. Why don't you get some sleep? I'll keep monitoring him and Friday will let you know if anything comes up.”

Tony wanted to protest but knew there wasn't anything he could do to help out here. He decided to head to one of the other guest rooms so that he would still be close by. He wasn't going to sleep though, that was out of the question, but he could do his own research while Bruce looked after Peter. Neither of them were psychologists, but Tony wasn't stupid either and he would read up on everything he could if it would mean being better able to help Peter.

* * *

Peter woke up Saturday morning feeling blissfully pain-free and somewhat well-rested. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a while, trying to remember everything that had happened the night before, but not really being able to recall any details. After a while, Friday interrupted his thoughts. "Boss wants you to know that breakfast is ready whenever you want it. He does not wish you to feel rushed and says you can sleep as long as you like, but he wants to ensure you eat once you are up."

"Tell him I'll be out in a few minutes," Peter said, realizing as Friday spoke that he was starving. He would have hoped that eating so well yesterday would have satiated him, but it seemed like nightmares and healing had negated all of that. It wouldn't do for him to get too comfortable with how things worked at the tower or it would just make him more miserable when he had to go home.

He changed into the clothes that were in his backpack. His t-shirt was already starting to look a little bit faded from how often he wore it and so he pulled on his sweatshirt over top for good measure, slightly paranoid that Mr. Stark would notice and desperately not wanting to give the man anything else to worry about.

The kitchen smelled heavenly when he walked in and he was surprised to see Mr. Stark was cooking. The man turned when he heard Peter's footsteps, "Morning Pete. How are you feeling?"

"Morning. I feel really great. Shouldn't you be upstairs having breakfast with your family?" Peter asked, cringing when he realized he'd spoken his thoughts before his brain had time to register that he was being rude and he had no right to question the man, he should remember his place.

"Nope," Mr. Stark responded matter-of-factly without hesitation, "I should be right here, having breakfast with you." He didn't pause long enough for Peter to respond before continuing, "Sit," he pointed to a spot at the bar where a mountain of waffles was already waiting. "I am almost done here and I'll join you. Just the two of us. Everyone else is off doing who-knows-what right now." He turned back to the stove and started removing what Peter could smell was bacon from a pan. Peter complied with the man's instructions, sitting at the bar and staring at the plate of mouthwatering waffles and fruit that sat in front of him. He was feeling awkward for not helping but did not want to question the man again to offer. Mr. Stark finished dishing the bacon onto a plate that was already full of eggs. He came over and placed the plate in front of Peter before sliding into the seat next to him in front of a much smaller plate of waffles.

“Eat before it gets cold, I'm sure your starving," Mr. Stark said and despite his insecurities, Peter complied and Mr. Stark continued, "Which reminds me, Bruce had to meet with Dr. Cho this morning, but he left some of their special synthesized protein powder for you to take. He told me to remind you that it is not a substitute for eating. It is a supplement. You still need to be aiming for a whopping 10,000* calories a day. And apparently you are supposed to get all that from 'healthy foods' but I am deadass serious that Bruce said he didn't care if you opted to eat entire bags of doritos every day for the next month while you tried to get your weight up. If I were you I would take advantage of that because never once has any professional ever given that advice before.”

Peter couldn't help a small smile at that which in turn made Tony break out into a massive grin and then hoping it wouldn't spoil the moment, said "I've missed seeing you smile kid."

Peter's smile fell from his face at that comment, "Sorry," he muttered, looking down at his food and slowing his pace. Tony wanted to kick himself for not shutting up.

“Please don't apologize," he tried to backtrack, "it's nothing to be sorry about. I'm sorry for saying something. You're absolutely fine, you hear me?”

Peter nodded but Tony knew he didn't believe him and hated that he’d ruined it.

"So, everything really feels good? No pain in your wrist or anywhere else?" Tony asked.

Peter shook his head, "no pain at all."

"That's great, do you want to head down to the lab and get some work done?" Tony opted to change the subject now that he was sure Peter was okay and to avoid the kid apologizing for anything else.

“I should get home," Peter said, his voice sounding dejected, "May is expecting me soon and she still thinks I'm at Ned's.”

“Right," Tony said, remembering the lie and feeling guilty about it, "well, I'll grab your suit for you, I'm done working on it, and I'll call Happy to come get you once you've finished eating.”

“No!" Peter said, finally looking back up from his food. "They think I am at Ned's. I'll take the subway. Matt would notice some fancy car pulling up and I can't explain that.”

Tony was taken aback by how insistent Peter was but nodded his acquisition because he had a point. Then he thought better of it, "I'll make you a deal," Tony offered, "Happy'll drive you most of the way and drop you off near the subway station by your house, how's that."

Peter contemplated for a moment and then nodded hesitantly, "I guess that's fine. As long as it isn't a problem for Happy."

"He'd love to kid. It'd make his day. It'd be a problem if you didn't let him," Tony might be overselling it at this point, but Happy really wouldn't mind and he didn't want Peter to question it.

“Finish what's on your plate," Tony added, seeing that Peter had stopped eating while they talked. "Remember what Bruce said. Actually, put some sugar on those waffles or something while you are at it.”

The faintest shadow of Peter's smile returned but it was gone again before Tony could be sure he'd seen it. He had wanted to bring up the nightmare, try talking to Peter about it, but seeing the kid this morning and seeing how fleeting his seemingly good moments were, Tony couldn't bring himself to ruin the morning. Peter was rested for the first time in forever it seemed and he was healthy and eating and that's what mattered. He would go downstairs once Peter left and talk with Bruce and Cho and they could make a plan to help Peter since they finally had an idea what the problem was. Or at least he hoped they did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *It seems outrageous, but I looked up how many calories Michael Phelps would eat in a day while training for the Olympics and voted that seemed like a good number for a teenage super-mutant spider kid to need.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want because hearing that people are actually reading this story brings me so much joy :)


	11. A Comfortable Rhythm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter slips in a routine of interning, school, and spider-man and then might get himself caught up in some avenger-level heroing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm the worst. I wanted to post this on Sunday but it just kept feeling wrong and as much as I hate to make y'all wait, I'd rather do that then post a chapter that I don't feel good about though so please forgive me 🥺. I rewrote the majority of it yesterday but needed a chance to sleep on it and re-read it with fresh eyes today. I am confident there are still errors and it is still kind of a mess, but here you go anyway!
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

The next Friday, Happy picked him up from school like normal. They’d fallen into a comfortable routine of Happy coming to get him, having a snack for him sitting on the back seat when Peter got in, and then asking, genuinely, about Peter’s day at school. The only thing different today was that instead of dropping Peter at the front door like he did on normal internship days, Happy pulled into the underground garage and got out of the car with him. Happy hadn’t mentioned anything specific, but when they got in the elevator he told Friday to take them up to the medbay instead of to the labs, so Peter knew that he wasn’t just going to get to work with Mr. Stark today. They were going to have yet another discussion about his health and his nightmares. He was very grateful he’d been using some of the protein powder from Dr. Banner over the past week and was actually eating whenever possible because that meant his bruises were healing fast enough that they wouldn’t be noticed. He didn’t think he could get away with many more injuries without Mr. Stark getting suspicious. Hopefully eating doing enough that they wouldn’t scrutinize his weight too much either, all of the concern from last week made him anxious.

When they got to the medbay, Mr. Stark was waiting for him along with Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner. Happy squeezed his shoulder in an affectionate way that still caught Peter off guard, despite how nice the man had been to him since he’d come back, and then nodded a goodbye to everyone else and left the room.

“So kid,” Mr. Stark began and Peter turned his attention to his mentor, “the doctors here just wanted to touch base with you, nothing big and nothing to worry about. Do you want me to stay while they talked with you?” Peter was perplexed by the question and it showed clearly on his face. It was Mr. Stark’s tower and they were his doctors, why would it matter what Peter wanted?

As if he could hear Peter’s thoughts, Tony went on, “It’s up to you bud. I don’t have to be here if you’d prefer some privacy, it’s your health and your decision, but if you want me to, I will stay. I want to be here for you, I just want you to tell me what it is that you need.” Tony explained. It still didn’t sit right with him how Peter seemed so confused by people giving him autonomy and choices but he knew he needed to be patient.

Peter just stared at him for a moment, trying to process the decision and figure out what it is he actually wants, before nodding his head slightly, “Okay. I guess I’d like you to stay then. If it isn’t too much trouble. If you have something else to do, or something more important, sorry for…” Peter started to stutter out an apology but Tony interrupted him.

“Hush. There is nothing more important than you for the record,” Tony smiled encouragingly and willed Peter to believe him, “I want to stay, I just wanted to give you the option.” In the back of his mind, he was still questioning whether the hit to Peter’s self-esteem was related to bullying at school or his PTSD but he kept his concern off his face. Peter relaxed some at the statement and even let Tony put an arm around him and guide him to sit on the bed in the middle of the room before taking a seat in the chair next to him.

After they had both settled, Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner stepped in and started explaining a lot of things that all basically meant that they hadn’t been able to conclusively determine what was causing Peter’s nightmares or his pain after that first study.

“There are a couple of other things we can still look at though, so I don’t want you to worry to much. We will put together some other tests and…” Dr. Banner concluded but Peter interrupted him, “I don’t want any other tests. Actually, it’s starting to get better. Yes, I mean, I’m still having them but they are getting less frequent the more time goes on you know? All on their own. They’ll probably stop completely in a while. I’m doing way better.” Peter spoke too quickly, like he was rushing to get all his words out before anyone could stop him and call him on his BS.

There was a moment of silence in the room when Peter finished speaking and all the adults shared a knowing look before Dr. Banner took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, Peter, I know this is a lot, and we won’t do anything you don’t want to, but…”

“I don’t want anything else. So it’s settled.” Peter interrupted again, with more confidence than even he knew he had. He never should have mentioned anything to them. He didn’t need people looking too closely at his health right now and he shouldn’t be wasting their time anyway.

“Okay Peter, we don’t need to do anything else right now. We are just trying to help,” Dr. Banner replied after another moment of silence, speaking gently as if he was afraid Peter would spook. Mr. Stark didn’t seem happy that Dr. Banner had conceded so easily, but he didn’t challenge it either. He sat silently as Dr. Banner went on to discuss the sleep aid that he and Dr. Cho had synthesized and how he wanted Peter to try it for the first time at the tower and that he would need to continue to take it under supervision going forward because he was a minor.

Peter shook his head through the whole explanation but waited for Dr. Banner to at least finish this time. “We aren’t involving May because nothing is wrong and I don’t need to stay at the tower again to try the medicine out,” Peter said with conviction, such a stark contrast to the soft stutter he normally used. “I appreciate all that you did, I am so sorry I wasted your time,” his tone softened and his apologizing was back, “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

Peter was focused on Dr. Banner throughout the exchange and didn’t see Tony behind him looking to be in physical pain as he watched Peter refuse any of their help. He actually flinched when Peter had said he refused to involve Aunt May. It still didn’t sit right with him to leave the woman in the dark about things that were so important, but he was reluctant to do anything behind Peter’s back. He was going through a lot, and betraying his trust wouldn’t solve anything. They hadn’t found anything physically wrong with Peter either that would require them to inform her. He had discussed it with Dr. Cho earlier that week, not entirely sure where the line was when it came to medical ethics and she had given him the spiel about doctor-patient confidentiality unless he is a “danger to himself” or “requires medical intervention” or something like that.***

Dr. Banner assured Peter that he wasn’t any trouble at all and they were all happy to help and then the meeting seemed to be over. Peter wasn’t going to allow anything else to be done and nobody was going to force him to do anything he didn’t want to. Mr. Stark stood up from his chair and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, “Okay kid, since we are done here, let's grab a snack and head down to the lab. I figured you could help me finish up some upgrades on your suit so you can take it home with you and get back to spider-manning.”

Peter nodded excitedly, happy to get out of the awkward room and to doing something familiar. Science he could do, he didn’t have to fake it or hide anything when he was working in the lab.

* * *

Peter’s life fell into a comfortable rhythm. He went to the tower for his internship three times a week and was working his way through the different departments. He’d spent two weeks in the material development lab and had been sad to move on, but found that every new team that he got to meet was doing something fascinating and there hadn’t yet been a group that he didn’t enjoy working with. It had been two months since he started, and Dr. Mitchell had told him that they would settle him into a more permanent lab assignment after Thanksgiving. That meant he had one more rotation to try out and the only lab he hadn’t been to yet was molecular biology and DNA research, which he had very conflicted feelings about.

On one hand, DNA research would be fascinating, especially considering his own unique predicament, but he was worried he might run into Dr. Banner in this lab. The man sometimes stopped by to help with projects, though he did have his own personal lab somewhere else in the building. Ever since the sleep-study, Peter had been actively trying to avoid the man as much as possible.

For the first month of his internship, he’d spent every Friday in Mr. Stark's personal lab working on upgrades to the suit or other miscellaneous projects. He had been nervous about spending so much time with his mentor, but things had gone really well. As anxious as he always was, he felt like he’d made more mistakes than usual - dropping tools, messing up lines of code, stuttering over his words - but Mr. Stark never seemed to get frustrated with him or lose his temper. Peter could apologize a hundred times when he’d made a mistake and Mr. Stark would just calmly tell him it was fine and that he had nothing to apologize for. Over time, Peter had started to notice that he didn’t feel the need to apologize for everything he did while in the lab and was finally starting to relax. The man persistently asked how Peter was feeling, if he was sleeping, how school was, etc. and though it had felt weird at first, Peter hard started to look forward to talking to his mentor about his life, at least the parts he could share.

Peter wasn’t proud of it, but while he was in one of the AI labs doing some work for the materials group, he had hacked into FRIDAY and added some code around not tattling on him when he was injured. Instead, the AI was supposed to inform Mr. Stark that he “did not detect any injuries” if she was directly asked. Unless, of course, Peter verbally and specifically admitted to an injury, in which case Friday would confirm what he had said and nothing else. It had been a particularly tricky thing to do. He had ended up staying late multiple nights trying to get it done without too much oversight or it getting in the way of his actual internship and he had paid for it when he’d come home after Matt’s curfew, but it was worth it. If he hadn’t done that, he wasn’t sure how he could have kept hiding what Matt was doing from Mr. Stark with how interested the man was in his well-being.

Unfortunately, just as he’d said he would, Mr. Stark eventually went back to live at his lake house full time with his family. He’d told Peter that he wanted to come into the city every other Friday and asked if Peter would like to come to the lake on the other weekends. Peter had been shocked by the offer, he couldn’t imagine why Mr. Stark would want him to disrupt his time with his family, and his real kid, with a kid like _Peter…_ it didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter though, there was no way he could explain it to either May or Matt so he couldn’t have accepted the offer if he’d wanted to. Neither of them realized how close Peter had gotten to his mentor and Peter didn’t think Matt even realized that he did work for Mr. Stark himself and not just some intern coordinator. He didn’t know if the man would be angry or indifferent if he found out. It confused him the way that Matt hated him so much but still didn’t like it when Peter spent too much time at Ned’s or went somewhere without telling him. You’d have thought he’d want Peter gone as much as possible, but he never let Peter spend the night over at Ned’s anymore and was really strict about his curfew. Peter was still able to go out at Spider-man at night after Matt went to bed or when he’d claim he was going to the library to study, or if he’d gotten permission from May to go to Ned’s or something. The man still ignored him for the most part when he was home, unless he was berating Peter for something or punishing him for existing he kept his distance, but it wasn’t anything more than Peter could handle. At this point, it was his new normal.

Peter didn’t think Mr. Stark would understand if he explained his actual reasoning, and he didn’t even want to risk bringing up Matt, so he had told the man that he needed to stay close to the city and it was his only chance to spend time with May and some other lies he thought would sound convincing. Mr. Stark had been disappointed but had said he understood and that the offer “was always open. Anytime you want to visit, just let me know and I’ll come to get you.”

When Mr. Stark had said that he would still come back to work with Peter in the lab instead on Fridays, Peter knew he couldn’t allow the man to do that. He had his own kid to spend time with and shouldn’t be wasting it on Peter. Peter had brushed off the offer and explained that it would make sense for him to spend the extra time this next month on real internship work so that he would know where he wanted to be assigned after his rotations. Mr. Stark had looked reluctant to agree, but Peter had plastered a heartfelt look on his face and tried to sound as genuine as possible in his desire to do more interning. It seemed like Mr. Stark just wanted to do what Peter wanted, and even though he knew he’d rather spend time with Mr. Stark and that he’d miss him, Peter refused to give in to his own selfish desires and convinced the man that they should take a break for a while.

Mr. Stark had still made him promise to call if he needed anything, or just to talk if he wanted, but Peter hadn’t actually taken him up on it. The man had sent a few texts checking in, and Peter always responded, but he gave short answers and didn’t ever start a conversation himself. Happy was still chauffeuring him to and from the tower as well and would bring up Mr. Stark occasionally, but he didn’t push when Peter changed the subject. Peter didn’t really have his mentor anymore, but it was fine. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the attention in the first place and he should be grateful enough that he had his normal internship and not be greedy or attention-seeking like because he wasn’t a child.

* * *

An added bonus of his internship was that he was busier than he’d ever been. Between school, decathlon, working in the lab, and Spider-man, he was hardly ever at home. With the time he spent at the tower, he usually managed to get a snack in, and in that first month of his internship, he’d sometimes even have dinner with Mr. Stark. He still avoided Matt as much as possible, which meant avoiding eating much on the weekends, but he was much better off than before school had started and didn’t feel as exhausted anymore.

Ever the benevolent husband, Matt had told May that he would “help Peter set up and manage a bank account, so he could learn responsibility,” in regards to his internship money, which really meant that he was putting it away and Peter couldn’t access it. Matt had told him that it was going into savings and Peter could have it when he finally moved out, minus the expenses he would owe Matt for the time that he was living there. Peter assumed that meant there would be nothing left and tried to stash some of it whenever he could. Matt knew what his hourly pay was, but didn’t know that Mr. Stark was actually paying him ‘overtime’ when he worked more than 9 hours in a week, despite Peter protesting that he didn’t need it. Peter was taking any money he made from extra time in the lab and putting it away for himself. Some of it he’d used to buy snacks at school, but he tried to keep some of it for just-in-case. He had thought about buying some things to hide in his room for when he was hungry at home, but the fear of Matt finding out outweighed any benefit. And he was usually so anxious at home that he rarely felt hungry anyway so it just wasn’t worth the hassle.

The downside of spending less time at home was that Matt had become more directly aggressive when he was there. It was like he was trying to make up for the fact that he was around less by hitting him harder. At first, he was careful about not leaving bruises where anyone could see, but every now and then he would land on Peter’s face or grab his wrist so hard that it bruised. When his bruises were particularly bad and didn’t seem like they were healing, Peter would take some of the supplement Dr. Banner had given him to try and boost his energy so he’d heal faster. He tried not to use it too often because he knew it would be suspicious if he ran out too quickly since he was under strict instructions to eat more actual food, but it did help in a pinch.

May was working even longer hours than before, so outside of the weekends, he almost never saw her and it wasn’t hard to keep a secret from her. She was always going on about how grateful she was for Matt being around so that she didn’t have to feel bad for leaving Peter alone so much, and Peter refused to say anything that would make things harder for her so he just tried to act normal when she was around, though it was hard for him to do. She’d ask about his internship and school and how his friends were, but even when she was talking to him, Peter never really felt like she was listening. It just felt like they were going through the motions and it became easier and easier to just spend more time in his room, or if he could get permission, over at Ned’s and to leave Matt and May to have time to themselves.

* * *

Peter was walking home from a particularly exhausting day of his internship when he heard the screams. Without a second thought, he ran down the closest alley and changed into his suit.

“Karen, what’s going on?” He asked as he pulled his mask on and climbed to the roof of the building he was next to store his backpack and get a better view of the city.

“Some type of extraterrestrial attack is occurring in Midtown, Peter. The Avenger’s in residence are currently en route from the tower, would you like me to link you into the comm system and plot the fastest route to the scene?”

“Yes!”

When Peter showed up to the battle site, some of the Avengers were already there and the battle was in full swing. Peter connected to the comm system and asked what he could do to help. Immediately, Captain America instructed him to help to get the civilians out and “stay close to the ground” which sounded an awful lot like something Mr. Stark would tell him. The man wasn’t here though, so he would have to assume the other Avengers had been instructed to keep Spider-man “safe” or something.

It didn’t matter though, Peter was happy to help the civilians while everyone else faced the Aliens. It was taking nearly all of his self-control to not spiral into a Titan-related panic at the very thought of Aliens, so avoiding facing them was better for everyone. Not to mention how sore he was after last nights particularly rough encounter with Matt.

Peter had been late coming home because he was, once again, low on money for his metro card, and Matt was annoyed that he’d have to give Peter back some of the money that he had taken from Peter to reload it. The irony of the situation was not lost on Peter, but he hadn’t been able to really dwell on it because only a moment later his spider-sense had blared particularly sharply and then there was a fist connecting with his face and he fell to the floor, his vision going grey for a moment. His eyes were clenched shut so he hadn’t noticed the foot coming toward him until it connected with his ribs. Matt gave him a couple of brutal kicks and then seemed to lose interest and walked off to his bedroom without another word. Peter had spent a few moments lying on the ground in the living room trying to catch his breath, certain that the man had managed to crack a few ribs. He knew that he was going to have trouble explaining this, but had been too exhausted to care anymore and went to bed without even bothering to eat something or drink a protein shake to try and help out his healing.

The bruise on his face hadn’t faded at all the next morning, but instead was a vibrant purple that Peter knew he wouldn’t be able to hide. School hadn’t been too bad because Ned was quick to believe his ‘Spider-man’ claims, but nobody at the lab knew about that so he’d told an animated story about tripping over a lego set and smacking his face on a doorknob. He had learned that the more enthusiastically and readily he told the story and the less he brushed off the injury, the more likely they were to believe him. The moment he tried to pass something off as ‘nothing’ or was vague about it, people got suspicious. Unfortunately, MJ was suspicious no matter what Peter told her, but she hadn’t actually called him out on it, he would just catch her giving him these looks all the time and he knew he needed to be wary of her.

Peter ignore his pain and hardly noticed what was going on around him as he focused his energy on collecting the stragglers from the area around the fight and getting them safely a few blocks away. He could hear voices over the comm in his ear and picked up on Black Widow, Falcon, and a voice he didn’t recognize were fighting, in addition to Captain America, but he wasn’t listening to the specifics of what they were saying. He wasn’t sure how long it took, but he had been searching through some of the buildings in the surrounding block that looked empty just to make sure there weren’t any stragglers when he heard an earsplitting crack of lightening. That must mean Thor had joined the fight. Peter paused in his search to fan-boy a minute over the fact the he was *technically* fighting alongside a literal god, even though he might be doing so indirectly. His freak out was short-lived however when he caught the tail end of Captain America over the comm saying, “Spider-man, do you copy?”

“Um, yes sir. Mr. Captain America sir, I’m here,” He stuttered out. He heard a chuckle come through the comm that he thought might be the Black Widow but he wasn’t completely sure.

Captain America sighed and mumbled “I’m never going to hear the end of that one,” which was followed by raucous laughter over the comms and then he continued with, “Steve. You can just go with Steve. And if the civilians are all clear, we could use all hands on deck over here.”

“Yes sir!” Peter responded, uncomfortable with the idea of using anything more casual at risk of coming across disrespectful, no matter what the man had said.

He ran from the building he’d be checking and shot a web to swing back to the center of the fight. It was chaos and Peter didn’t even have time to panic before he was dodging flying debris from what appeared to be telekinetic aliens of some sort. He listened closely to the orders from Captain America now and tried to web up some of the creatures while avoiding getting knocked out by anything that was being hurled at him. It was exhausting and the swinging around did nothing for his ribs, but it felt like it only lasted a few minutes before there was another earth-shattering crack of lightning and then the aliens fell to the ground and it was silent. Peter hadn’t noticed how loud the battle had been until it stopped. He surveyed the ground around him and saw fallen aliens everywhere.

“I have destroyed the power source that was feeding them,” Peter heard Thor announce over the comms.

“Good work team. Everyone good?” Captain asked.

Peter heard an echo of “fine” “peachy” and a snarky “I didn’t know you cared” over the line before responding with his own “all good.”

Now that he had stopped moving, his adrenaline was wearing off and Peter became acutely aware of how much pain he was in.

“Peter, you appear to be showing signs of distress and I am detecting contusions on your face and chest. Would you like me to alert Captain America or another Avenger, per Mr. Stark’s instructions to inform an adult when you are injured.” Karen asked in his ear.

“No, Karen,” Peter sighed, having had this same discussion with her nearly every time he put the suit on when he had leftover injuries from Matt. As long as there was nothing too serious, she agreed not to inform Mr. Stark, but there had been a couple of close calls where he had narrowly convinced her to keep his secret.

“Very well Peter. I recommend informing an adult, but in the absence of medical treatment, I advise rest and eating to accelerate the healing process.” Karen told him. Peter thought that rest sounded like a nice idea. He stood on the ground in the middle of a pile of wreckage right now and he couldn’t directly see any of the other Avengers so he thought it would probably be alright to take just a minute to catch his breath. Then he would swing back in and help, but just for a second, he was going to sit down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***I am not a doctor and have no real grasp on medical ethics, so this is just the response that furthers my plot and I went with it. 
> 
> A lot needed to happen this chapter and so I covered a big chunk of time. I am deeply sorry that I changed perspectives and tenses approximately every other sentence and honestly admire you if you managed to read this far. Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want to yell at me for taking forever, if you are good at grammar and would like to share whatever the secrets are (please, I'm serious, I need help), or if you just want to be friends!


	12. Rooftop Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has a heart-to-heart with one of the Avengers is a little bit too honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, a reasonable amount of time has passed and I am already uploading another chapter AND it is before 1 AM! What a week of self-improvement and personal growth! 
> 
> Also, fun fact, this is actually the point where I started writing the story and then I went back and figured out the beginning. These next few chapters were some of the first that I wrote (or at least outlined) and they are some of my favorites (and potentially some of the most poorly written, but let's ignore that part).
> 
> TW: descriptions of child abuse throughout, please take care of yourself!

Peter swung onto the rooftop where he had stashed his backpack before the fight and sat down on the edge, letting his feet dangle over the side of the building as he surveyed the wreckage below him. It didn’t matter how hard they tried, Alien attacks were always so messy. At least it wasn’t really on him. Most of the actually fighting had been done by the Avengers and if he was really going to get technical, Thor had done the majority of the damage. He knew he needed to get down there and help out, he just needed a few minutes to catch his breath. The battle hadn’t been a particularly long one, but Peter wasn’t at 100% to begin with and the fight had just further exacerbated his other injuries. He didn’t want to think about those injuries right now though, he only wanted to think about the Aliens that they had defeated and that despite the mess, no civilians were injured. That is what he needed to focus on.

Peter was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t immediately notice when the Falcon landed on his roof. It wasn’t until the man was settling down next to him that Peter looked up, startled, and acknowledged him.

“Hey, Mr. Falcon, sir,” Peter stuttered out with a nod of his head, “I promise I’m not shirking off cleanup, just taking a quick breather.” Peter felt like he needed to justify himself.

The other man held up a pacifying hand, “I am not here to bust you or to judge kid. I just needed a quiet place for a quick breather too,” he explained. “And,” he continued, looking a bit sheepish, “Stark might have made some threats about checking up on you after the battle as well. So I am also here to verify that you are in fact in one piece for him. He mentioned something about ‘not believing a word Spiderman says when it comes to his health.’”

Peter couldn’t help but chuckle at that, he immediately wished he wouldn’t have though. His laugh turned into a gasp of pain due to the sharp twinge in his ribs.

“Whoa, kid. Glad I came to check. We didn’t see you get hit, where are you hurt?” Falcon was worriedly looking him up and down.

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Falcon, sir. I’m fine.” Peter straightened up and ignored the pain in his ribs and tried to plaster a convincing smile onto his face, forgetting for a moment that he was wearing a mask and that the other man couldn’t see his face.

“Right….that’s bullshit but we can deal with that in a second. First thing, I am flattered by the ‘Mr. Falcon’ but we both fought together to save the universe - twice, if you count the first time which wasn’t as successful - and you just handled your first run-of-the-mill alien invasion like a seasoned Avenger, so I think that warrants a first name basis.” He pulled off his helmet and placed it on the ground next to him and held out his hand, “Call me Sam.”

Peter took the offered hand and smiled. “Peter,” he offered, and then following the other man's lead, he pulled his own mask off, relishing in the coolness that immediately came with freeing his damp and sweaty hair.

Sam had been smiling as he shook Peter’s hand, but as soon as he laid eyes on Peter’s maskless face the smile fell and he sucked in a harsh breath.

“Jesus christ kid, what happened to your eye?” Sam asked, his concern written all over his face.

Peter immediately regretted his decision to reveal himself. He trusted the other man, he was an Avenger after all, but he had forgotten how bad his face looked and really wasn’t in the mood to dodge questions about it. He had been avoiding Mr. Stark for weeks for this very reason.

“It’s nothing, occupational hazard, and all that,” Peter casually gestured down to the battle scene below and tried to brush it off, but Sam just stared at him incredulously.

“There is no way that just happened, those bruises are a few days old at least.” Sam said.

“I heal fast,” Peter shrugged, trying to keep a calm facade despite the panic that was rising in him and the nausea he was feeling at the thought of being found out after everything he had been through to keep this secret and protect May.

Sam just stared at him. They sat in this silent standoff for a few moments before Sam quietly started to speak again.

“Kid, I’ve seen you fight. I can’t imagine what it would take for someone to get that close to you and inflict that kind of damage on your face. Those aren’t ‘alien battle’ wounds, those are fist-fight wounds.”

Peter took a deep breath and sighed it out. He was tired. The battle had been exhausting, sure, but his entire life was exhausting these days. He wasn’t sure what it was about Sam that made him feel comfortable, and he wanted to blame it all on post-battle weariness, but he had felt inches from a complete breakdown for a while now.

“It wasn’t so much a fistfight as it was a peter-the-punching bag situation.” Peter heard himself say without intending to, laughing a little bit under his breath as he spoke, trying to make it come off as light-hearted or nonchalant, but probably sounding ready for an asylum instead.

Sam didn’t respond at first. He looked like he was intensely contemplating something, his full attention on Peter. Peter didn’t offer any other details and after enough time had passed that Peter had started to squirm uncomfortably under the silent intensity of the man’s gaze, Sam spoke up.

“Not that it’s a big deal, but kid, how old are?” He asked. “Because I have to be honest, you don’t look a day over sixteen and it has got me a little bit worried.”

Peter paled as the man spoke. He wasn’t a day over sixteen, he wasn’t even close, so Sam was right on the money there. Then again, nearly five years had passed while he had been ‘dead’ or something so really he was nineteen, basically twenty really. Even Matt had said so.

“I know I look young,” Peter started, trying to figure out what the safest answer was, “the spider bite that gave me my powers messed with my DNA,” he thought that was a logical way to justify his youthful appearance. It wasn’t completely a lie either. Sam was listening intently and though he looked skeptical, he nodded as Peter spoke.

“I’m almost twenty.” Peter finally said, and he decided that no, it wasn’t even a lie. Except, Mr. Stark would probably see it as one, but that didn’t matter right now. His mentor obviously hadn’t mentioned his age to the other Avengers before, probably because they would be a little judgmental of Mr. Stark bringing a fourteen-year-old into an international super-hero feud, but still, he didn’t see any reason to bring it up and cause the man any trouble now.

Sam seemed to relax a bit at that. “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything, I just wanted to ask. This is a lot for anyone to handle,” Sam gestured to the destruction below them and then generally to Peter’s suit, “and whether you are legally an adult or not, you're still kind of a kid.”

Peter tried to keep his face neutral. He wasn’t lying and he didn’t need to feel guilty, he just needed to keep telling himself that.

“Anyway,” Sam started again when he realized Peter wasn’t going to respond, “I think you were about to tell me happened to your face.”

Peter took a couple of deep breathes. He wasn’t sure what he had been about to tell the man, a little bit of the truth had just accidentally slipped out earlier and he thoroughly regretted it. Except, he was exhausted from lying, and if he was nineteen, which he legally was, then it wasn’t like Sam could do anything about it.

Sam was patient, he was clearly listening but didn’t seem to have any issues with giving Peter the space he needed to think.

Peter tried to physically relax his shoulders, which had tensed up during their conversation, “just between you and me?” he asked, trying to appear nonchalant as he spoke. The last thing he needed was anything getting back to Mr. Stark. Not that anything was really wrong, Peter was being overly-sensitive about a lot of it probably, but he just didn’t the man to realize how weak he was.

Sam hesitated a moment and then nodded. “Sure. Just between us.”

“It was nothing, I got in a bit of a fight with my aunt’s boyfriend. A disagreement more than a fight, really.” Peter tried to play it off.

Sam raised an eyebrow at that. “Looks like his fist disagreed with your face. And, like I said before, I’ve seen you fight, how did he manage to land a punch on you.”

Peter sighed, “He doesn’t know about Spiderman, and it wouldn’t be right to use my powers like that. As far as he knows, I am just an average ki-guy,” Peter hastily corrected himself, “Just an average, scrawny guy who he should be able to beat up. And I heal fast. So it doesn’t even count.” Peter wasn’t sure who he was trying to justify it to, himself, or Sam.

Sam was looking at him intently but the man’s face was unreadable. They sat like that for a few minutes, Sam seeming to study Peter.

“It’s none of my business, but what was your ‘disagreement’ about?” Sam finally spoke.

Peter took a minute to try and formulate an acceptable response. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to talk a lot,” Peter laughed a little while he said it, trying to keep things light.

Sam smirked in acknowledgment of that and nodded for Peter to keep going. “I was pushing his buttons, wouldn’t shut up, I know better,” Peter explained, “anyway, not a big deal. The bruises will be gone tomorrow and my ribs will be better by the end of the week.” Peter hadn’t even realized how much he had given away in that sentence.

“That’s messed up kid,” Sam said, looking so serious that Peter started to worry he had said too much. It had been a relief to tell the truth about all of this to someone finally, and he was sure, deep down, that it was his fault to begin with, so what was Sam all worked up about?

“No, it was on me, I knew exactly what I was doing. Contrary to what most people experience, I actually can shut up,” Peter tried to joke. Sam didn’t laugh.

“Is your Aunt living with this guy?” Sam asked, his face was impassive and it was making Peter nervous. “I mean, does she need help?”

Peter was already shaking his head. “No. Definitely not. She’s fine. He is great with her, they are madly in love. No worries. Everything’s peachy.” Peter was emphatically trying to defend the situation. He was a good nephew, the only reason he hadn’t said anything when Matt hit him in the first place was because the man loved May so much and treated her so well. She deserved that. He wasn’t going to get in the way of her happiness because he was too screwed up. “I just need to lay low, stay out of the way a little better,” Peter added, oblivious to how bad he was making things sound.

“Jesus kid, are you living with them right now?” Sam seemed truly alarmed now.

“No, no, just visiting. That’s all. Please, just forget I said anything.” Peter was desperately trying to backtrack now. Clearly, Sam didn’t seem to care if Peter was an ‘adult’ or not, he seemed concerned about his safety. Peter was a superhero, he was fine, whatever Sam may believe. If the man thought he couldn’t take care of himself at nineteen than there was no way he would believe Peter could do it at fifteen. He could see that he had made a mistake being even partly honest with Sam and he needed to fix this.

Sam was shaking his head, “it’s still pretty messed up. A temper like that, he could easily turn on your aunt one day. Do you have any cousins? Kids who live with them?” Sam asked.

“No…” Peter replied, not totally sure where the man was going.

Sam nodded, “I just had to ask,” he said, “not that I am trying to get in the middle of it, or step on your toes or whatever, but I’ve seen a lot and guys with anger problems seem to take it out on their kids a lot. We are ‘heroes’ and all that, but we can’t fix everything and sometimes you have to get the authorities involved, you know?” Sam was clearly trying to gauge Peter’s reaction to this, make sure the kid understood what the ‘right thing to do was’.

Peter was hopeful that his face remained neutral because inside, he was freaking out. This is what he had been afraid of, someone who didn’t understand the situation thinking they needed to call the police or whatever. It wouldn’t solve anything, it was a family matter. Peter had it under control. If he stopped provoking him and giving the man a reason, Matt would stop hitting him. And he wasn’t a kid. He was an adult. Matt had told him that anyway. It wasn’t like the man was hitting a kid, he was hitting Peter. It was different, it was fine, or at least that is what Peter needed to believe to keep himself calm.

“I get it, you’re just worried. I appreciate it and all Mr. Sam, but I’ve got it handled. I would never let anything happen to my aunt or to anyone else. I’m Spider-man, I lookout for the little guy.” Peter’s voice remained blessedly even as he spoke, despite his internal panic.

“I know. You’re a good guy, nobody would ever question that,” Sam relented after a few moments of silence. He smiled gently at Peter, “sorry to get so serious on you, and I promise I’ll drop it, just two more things.”

Peter couldn’t help it, he audibly groaned and Sam just smiled wider.

“You mentioned your ribs and you’ve been favoring them. Alien fighting couldn’t have helped. Mind if I take a look?” He sounded casual, but Peter could tell it was forced and he was genuinely concerned.

“I’m fine. Mr. Stark is a drama queen. I really do have super healing.” Peter rolled his eyes for emphasis.

“I’m sure you do, but I am trained as a field medic, from my days in the military, so I am not asking for anything invasive, just want to verify they aren’t broken,” Sam explained.

Peter could tell the other man wasn’t going to let this go so he shrugged and nodded his consent. Sam looked relieved and stood up, gesturing for Peter to move away from the edge of the roof. Peter grudgingly complied, scooting back and trying his best to keep a straight face despite this sharp protest of his ribs. He did not need to give the man the satisfaction of seeing the extent of his injuries.

Once he was far enough back, Sam asked him to lay back and proceeded to gently prod around Peter’s ribs. Despite his best effort, Peter couldn’t help but let out a hiss of pain as the man pressed down on a particularly ginger spot. Sam apologized but kept up his ministrations, checking all of his ribs before sitting back on his heels and looking at Peter.

“I can’t say for sure, but as best as I can tell they aren’t broken,” Peter smirked as Sam conceded this, but Sam raised a hand to stop him, “ _but_ …” he emphasized, “I would guess that at least a few of them are cracked. You should not be swinging around, fighting aliens with cracked ribs. One of them will break and puncture your lung and that would be a mess.” He gave Peter a stern look as he spoke and Peter felt himself subconsciously shrink back.

“Oops?” He offered, not really sure what to say.

Sam eased up at that, “Oops is right. Promise me you’ll take it easy kid? I do not want to have to explain to Stark how I got his favorite spider-guy killed.”

Peter felt his face flush at that. It was a nice sentiment, and he supposed Mr. Stark had invested a lot in Spider-man, and even in Peter, letting him intern in the SI labs before the snap. Dying over something stupid like that would be a waste of the man’s money for sure.

“Point taken, I’ll take it easy,” Peter promised. “Are we good now? Not being a great teammate letting everyone else clean up without us…” Peter tried to joke as he sat up and reached for his mask.

Sam shot him a knowing look, “not so fast. I said take it easy, so I think you should leave the cleanup to the rest of us. I promise it won’t hurt anyone’s feelings and they probably haven’t even noticed we aren’t there. Also, I said two things, the ribs were only one.”

Sam paused and his face got serious again. “If you need help or something, or if you want to talk…we are all around.” Peter was uncomfortable at the seriousness of the offer and just stared down at his lap and twisted his mask in his hands. “I’m sure Tony has already offered it, but if you end up needing a place to stay or whatever, I know for a fact you have a room at the tower. I’ve seen it. It’s got nerdy movie posters and lego sets everywhere. Tony clearly put a lot of effort into it. My room didn’t come with any toys at all.” Sam tried to make a joke out of it at the end, but his face was still too serious for it to be funny. Peter didn’t know what to say so he just nodded.

“Right,” Sam said, seemingly content with Peter’s response for now, “I’m serious about you resting, but before you go, you got a phone?”

Peter gave him a confused look, but nodded and looked around the roof for the backpack he had stashed up here before the battle. He saw it and slowly stood up, no reason to hide his ribs now, and made his way over to grab his phone.

“The backpack isn’t helping with the baby-face thing,” Peter heard Sam say behind him when the man saw his bag.

Peter stiffened at the comment but forced himself to stand up and keep a level voice, “If you must know, I am an intern at SI and was headed home from work. We don’t all just live rent-free in a billion-dollar tower.” Peter hoped that hadn’t been too harsh, he had been aiming for banter, but it had hit a little too close to home.

“Sorry, I was just messing with you,” Sam looked remorseful, but not angry, which was a relief. He took the phone and started typing. “I’m putting in my number,” he said, “I was serious before. Call if you need anything. The superhero gigs a lot for anyone to deal with, you shouldn’t do it alone. We all lean on each other. Come by the tower some time for dinner or something. We’re a dysfunctional sort of family, but it works, you’ll see.” He offered the phone back to Peter.

“Better get down and help. And you better get home,” he nodded to Peter at this, put his helmet back on, and walked to the edge of the roof. He turned back to Peter one last time, “Take care of yourself,” he said and then he extended his wings, leaned forward, and glided off of the roof.

Peter stood there for a few minutes after Sam left, trying to let everything that had just happened sink in. He had told the truth, at least part of it. He was terrified that this would come back and bite him later, but also felt a little bit lighter than he had earlier today. His impromptu rooftop confession had been a close call, but he hadn’t lied about his injuries for once, and it had felt good. That didn’t mean he needed help though. He still had everything under control and he wouldn’t be so careless about what he said again.

With that in mind, Peter gingerly climbed out of his suit and changed back into his school clothes before making his way down the fire escape and heading for home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love therapist-Sam and this is not the last time he will appear! Also, there is a point in this chapter where I feel like I used the word 'face' so many times that by the third re-read, it didn't even sound like a word to me anymore. Aside from substituting with something pretentious like 'visage' (which I'd hazard would have actually made it weirder instead of helping) I didn't know how to fix it so I just stopped trying to read/edit it an posted it anyway. 
> 
> Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want to yell at me, if you are good at grammar and would like to share whatever the secrets are (please, I'm serious, I need help), or if you just want to be friends!


	13. Calling Clint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Peter's let a few things slip, the cracks in his facade are starting to get bigger and it is time to start asking for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY. I am the absolute worst for disappearing and cannot apologize enough for leaving everyone hanging after how encouraging and supportive you all have been.
> 
> Life happened all at once and even though this chapter was already half-written, I had to walk away for a while because I had just lost all motivation and inspiration. I know it is kind of a small thing, but our family dog passed away, and though she was getting very old and we were trying to prepare for it, it ended up being an accident and it came as a pretty big shock. I had thought we would get a chance to say goodbye and that it could be peaceful for her and we could have closure, but that isn't how it happened so it was just too much to process for a while. This is also the first time I've lost a pet who had been there for most of my life and coupled with the state of the world in general, I was overwhelmed. 
> 
> I finally feel like I am getting my feet back under me and though I am not going to promise a certain upload schedule, I am going to promise that it will not be another 3-month hiatus and I will not abandon this story.
> 
> Again, I am really sorry for taking so long to update, and thank you for sticking with me and sticking with the story!

Peter was grateful to come home to an empty apartment. His head was swimming from the battle and his rooftop confession and he didn’t think he had enough mental wherewithal left to safely interact with Matt. Despite the empty living room, Peter went straight to his bedroom, throwing his backpack on the bed with a bit too much force in his agitated state. His bag slid across his bed and off the other side, tumbling to the floor and sending school supplies flying everywhere. Peter cursed under his breath at his own carelessness, once again thankful the Matt hadn’t been home to hear that and to punish Peter for his lack of respect for the possessions that he was “so generously provided.” He knelt down next to the bed and began haphazardly shoving everything back into his bag. Amidst the notebooks and pens, a scrap of paper had fallen out. Peter picked it up, moving to shove it back in his backpack before realizing what it was - the phone number that Mr. Barton had given him that first day back when he had dropped him off. Peter had shoved it into one of his school notebooks so that he wouldn’t lose it and had almost forgotten about it.

Now, staring at the scrap of paper in his hand, he was wondering for the first time if he should use it or not. He shook his head, unsure where the thought was even coming from and went to put the paper back into his spiral. It was nearly Thanksgiving, he couldn’t bother the man at the holidays. Despite knowing that calling Mr. Barton was not a real option and he was being ridiculous to even consider it, his traitorous mind thought back to his conversation with Sam on the roof and how it had felt to just be honest for a moment. He was terrified to tell someone what was actually happening, but a bigger part of him just needed to get away from everything and clear his head. For the first time, Peter had to admit to himself that he wasn’t sure if he really could handle this anymore. He needed a break, just to regroup and figure things out. An added benefit would be that he hadn’t known Hawkeye before the snap really, so the man couldn’t be uncomfortably different because Peter didn’t know what normal was for him.

Everything in Peter’s life had fallen apart and was all so terrifyingly different from before. He was tired of being constantly confused and overwhelmed. Mr. Hawkeye had seemed so nice and genuine, and Peter was sure if he called, the man would help, but there was still a nagging voice in the back of his head, one that sounded a lot like Matt, reminding him that he was already a huge inconvenience and it was selfish to impose himself on anyone else.

Peter shook his head to clear Matt’s voice. Sam had mentioned that Peter could stay at the tower if needed, but there was no way that he could do that for very long without Mr. Stark finding out so it wasn’t really an option. He just needed a break. Nothing too drastic, just a brief change of scenery so he didn’t have a complete breakdown and then he’d be ready to face the world again. He took a deep breath, pulled out his phone, and dialed the number before he could change his mind. Clint answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” 

Peter froze for a moment, not really sure what to say and already regretting making the call.

“Peter? Tony made my phone, it’s got some pretty fancy caller ID on it so I know that’s you. Are you there?” Clint said.

“Hello, Mr. Barton,” Peter choked out through his panic. His voice came out scratchy, almost like he’d been crying even though he hadn’t. “I’m sorry to bother you, I didn’t really mean to call. Sorry. I’ll let you go” Peter tried to talk his way out of this one, now that he’d made the call he realized how stupid it was didn’t think he could go through with it.

“No way kid, you aren’t bothering me, I am just sitting on the porch, drinking a cup of coffee, wishing I had someone to talk to and then you called and look how perfectly that worked out. So what’s up?” Clint’s voice was light and Peter couldn’t help but feel a little calmer with the man’s reassurances.

“I, well, I don’t really know what to say,” Peter tried, realizing he still didn’t have the right words and he was going to just have to spit it out. He didn’t have to come clean or confess to what was happening, he just needed to get away. 

Clint waited patiently, giving the kid time to get his thoughts together. He wasn’t actually sitting out sipping coffee, he had been working out in the barn with Cooper and had stepped away when he saw Peter’s name flash across his screen. He’d hardly met the kid and barely knew anything about him, but he was happy to hear from him, if not a little concerned as to what had pushed him to finally reach out after all this time. He was glad he had answered because the cracking in Peter’s voice had confirmed his suspicion that he wasn’t just calling to chat, something was not right.

“I was just wondering,” Peter started again, “and you can completely say no, it is totally fine, in fact, I think you should say no, there is no reason to say yes, I just…” 

“Peter, breath,” Clint interrupted his rambling, “Why don’t you ask me your question before answering it for me. I’m big into saying ‘yes’ to things so I might surprise you.”

“I need a place to stay,” Peter finally spat it out, “just for a few days!” He added hastily.

Clint wanted to pause and try and absorb what the kid had asked and figure out what was going on but knew if he hesitated than Peter would panic and backtrack and he wouldn’t get any answers anyway. “Sure kid, I’d love to have you out to visit. Just wondering, do you have school? Or need to check with your aunt…” Clint trailed off a bit realizing he wasn’t entirely sure how old Peter was. The kid looked twelve, but he couldn’t imagine Tony bringing a literal child into a fight in Germany and he had no idea how enhanced teenagers worked. Steve didn’t really age like a normal person so who’s to say Peter would? 

“No school, and I don’t need to check with her. I’ll let her know of course, but it’s up to me anyway,” Peter knew how to answer this after how easily the lie had come with Sam. And it wasn’t a lie, he reminded himself, he was an adult, it was more of a technicality. And school was a joke, he could do it in his sleep, missing a week wouldn’t be a big deal. “I am looking to get my own place, just after everything that happened it took a while to get settled and try and find a job and so I was staying with her, but it was a temporary thing,” the lie came easier this time.

“Laura and I would love to have you,” Clint said enthusiastically, hoping to relieve the doubts Peter had about asking or being an ‘inconvenience’. “We live a ways away, could you meet me at the tower in an hour or so? I can pick you up in the jet. It wouldn’t hurt for me to stop in and say hi to the team either. Have you met any of them yet?” Clint tried to keep the conversation going, figuring that if he didn’t give the kid the chance to back out it would be easier. His dad instincts were telling him that something was wrong and that Peter needed help and he didn’t want anything to scare the kid off.

“I, uh, met them sort of. A bit of an alien thing earlier today. Talked to Mr. Falcon some…” Peter mumbled. 

Clint chuckled when Peter said ‘Mr. Falcon,’ making a note to use it when making fun of Sam in the future. “I will call Sam then, let him know you are coming by the tower and he can bring you up to the common room to hang out for a bit while I head that way.”

Peter hesitated, not sure if it would be a good idea to face the Avengers so soon after the battle, particularly not Sam after their conversation. The alternative, staying put and waiting for Matt to get home, made him even more nervous though, so he swallowed his fears, “I can, um, do that. If it isn’t too much of a problem,” Peter tried one more time to offer the man a way out.

“Nope, it’s perfect. I’ll see you in a few hours then,” Clint stated firmly. 

“Right. A few hours,” Peter confirmed, unable to keep the relief from his voice, “thank you. For letting me come. Really, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. See you soon,” 

Clint ended the call and stared down at the phone in his hand trying to figure out what his next move should be. He needed to call Sam before the kid got to the tower, but he had no idea what to tell his friend. Should he call Tony and fill him in? It was a bit odd that the kid had come to him and not gone to Tony first, but it wasn’t really Clint’s place to get in the middle, despite how curious he was. He’d wait until he talked to Peter before talking to the engineer.

* * *

Sam hadn’t even been home for an hour after clean up from the attack that afternoon when his phone rang. He assumed Clint had seen something about the fight on the news and was checking in, “What’s up gramps, how’s retirement?”

“Haha, you’re hilarious Mr. Falcon, sir,” Clint teased back.

Sam didn’t immediately have a comeback to that, “Did you hack the comms?” He finally asked.

Clint chuckled, “I’m not Stark, I don’t have time for that crap. I just got off the phone with Spider-man actually,” Clint responded.

Sam was intrigued now. He had been feeling uneasy about his conversation with Peter since the moment he’d agreed to let the kid go home. “You talked to Peter?”

“Yep. Said he met you during an alien invasion, so I guess it’s just another normal day in New York. Anyway, it’s a bit of a long story, but he needs a place to crash for a bit, so he’s going to come stay with me. I’m headed to the tower now in a jet and he is supposed to be meeting me there. Will you bring him up when he gets to the lobby?” Clint explained.

“Thank god he called you,” Sam breathed out hearing Clint’s explanation.

“What do you mean?” Clint asked immediately, panic coloring his voice.

“Chill man, I didn’t mean to freak you out,” Sam soothed, “It isn’t my place to say anything, it’s just we chatted after the battle today and I think it is a good idea for him to get out of the city for a bit. That’s it. You’ll have to talk to him when you see him. I’m sure you’ll have some questions for him,” Sam was thinking of the bruising on Peter’s face and ribs. “I should tell you that the kids a bit banged up though, so whether he admits it or not, keep an eye on his ribs,” Sam mentioned. As a therapist, he understood confidentially particularly well, but he also felt that he wasn’t violating the kid's trust sharing that one tidbit but still let the kid decide what excuse he made for the bruises. 

“Right,” Clint responded uncertainly, “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll see you in a bit.”

* * *

Peter hastily sent off a text to May saying that Mr. Stark wanted his help with some suit upgrades and had asked him to stay at the tower for a few days. He was almost disappointed at how quickly she’d given permission and how she hadn’t questioned him about school or at least mentioned that she wanted to spend time with him or would miss him, but he supposed it was for the best.

He threw his clothes in a backpack along with his laptop and suit and decided that would be good. He only had five outfits and it probably should have bothered him how easily he could pack his entire life away, but he was becoming numb to it all. He opted to use up the last of the money on his metro card and took the subway to the tower because he was exhausted and sore, but mostly he just didn’t care anymore. 

Sam was leaning against the reception desk when Peter walked into the lobby. He could have used his internship badge to get in but supposed that Sam and Mr. Barton didn’t know that and appreciated the gesture anyway.

“Hey kid,” Sam said, smiling and walking over once he noticed Peter, “I’d say I was surprised to see you again so soon, but I fully understand how hard it is to be away from someone as incredible as I am for any amount of time.”

Peter returned the smile grateful for the man’s teasing and that he was keeping things light and it didn’t seem like he was going to bring up their rooftop conversation right now. “You caught me. I figured I better take you up on the offer to come to the tower, with the way these Alien attacks happen, who knows what’ll even be here tomorrow,” Peter tried to joke, but realized his joke was a bit too close to reality when he saw Sam’s incredulous look. He was about to backtrack and apologize when Sam’s face broke into a smile.

“You’ve got a dark sense of humor, but I like it,” Sam put a hand on Peter’s shoulder and it took everything in him not to flinch and just let the man lead him toward the elevators. “Anyway, let’s go up to the common room and wait for Clint. I’d introduce you to the others, but post-battle they all tend to scatter to their rooms and unwind so I think the common room will be pretty empty.” Sam had offered the comment nonchalantly, but in reality he was trying to ease some of the anxiety radiating off of the kid. After talking to Clint, he figured meeting all the Avengers right now would be a bit much, so he’d asked them all to let him have the common room for a few hours before he’d come down to get Peter. He was sure they’d question him on it later, but everyone really was exhausted after the fight and had just shrugged it off for the time.

Peter relaxed a bit knowing he wouldn’t have to face all of his hero’s right now when he was feeling so off. He followed Sam into the elevator and let the man ramble on a bit about the other Avengers and each of their weirdly specific post-battle routines, like the Winter Soldier taking a bubble bath and Captain America watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. It was so domestic and normal that Peter found himself loosening up more and even chuckling at the stories.

It had taken Peter a while to get to the tower, even on the subway, so they had only been in the common room a few minutes when his sensitive hearing picked up on the sound of a jet getting closer. Sam was still reminiscing about the “olden days” of Mario Kart marathons after battling hydra agents when the jet landed and Friday announced Clint’s arrival.

Clint walked in to the common room and immediately went to embraced Sam in very tight hug before he turned his attention to Peter. “Hey kid, it’s really good to see you,” Clint said sincerely. Peter had watched the former spies eyes quietly appraising him and saw the raised brow when Mr. Barton noticed the black eye, so he was surprised, but grateful when the man opted not to comment on it right away.

“Hi Mr. Barton. Sorry to inconvenience you, but thanks for coming to get me and letting me stay,” Peter would have gone on with more of an apology but Clint had waved him off mid-sentence. “Don’t sweat it kid. I am genuinely happy to have you,” Clint said as he walked over and put an arm around Peter, pulling him into a friendly side hug that, for some reason, didn’t make Peter want to jump out of his own skin. Peter couldn’t explain why he felt so comfortable around the man or why he’d felt suddenly calm when he saw Mr. Barton walk in, but it was an instant relief that had washed over him. As conflicted as he had been about calling, in this moment he was honestly glad that he had.

Clint kept an arm around Peter while he chatted with Sam for a bit about the battle and some of the more mundane goings-on in the tower. Peter half listened but mostly just relished the feeling of safety he had standing there at that moment. His spider-sense had quieted the first time since the snap and the relief of silence was so great that Peter felt himself start to get drowsy. Were it not for his complete emotional and physical exhaustion, he would have been embarrassed to realize he was starting to lean pretty heavily into Mr. Barton.

Clint had opted to keep things light and not make a big deal about seeing Peter or making him the center of attention. He was just chatting with Sam for some sense of normalcy when he noticed that the kid was getting a bit droopy next to him and took that as their cue to leave. He started to move toward the jet, his arm still around Peter’s shoulder pulling the kid along with him. “Good to see you, Sam. You’ll have to come by the farm sometime soon. I always love to catch up but I think we should get back in time for dinner.” Sam nodded, noticing the sleepy look on Peter’s face as well.

“Definitely. I’ll let you know. Have a safe flight, say hi to Laura for me,” Sam said giving a brief wave to them as they reached the door.“It’s been good talking to you Peter,” he added. Peter turned his head and nodded in response to Sam, but was too tired to say much more, and let himself be led onto the plane.

—

The flight was quiet. Once they had settled onto the plane, Peter had roused himself a bit and had woken up fully during take off. He had thanked Mr. Barton profusely for the first few minutes, in response to which Clint just chuckled and told Peter to “Relax.”

Peter took the instruction to heart and settled in, slipping his headphones on and finally letting his eyes drift close. He didn’t fall asleep like he had thought he would, he had too much on his mind, but was grateful just to rest for a bit anyway. He had also seen that the man wanted to ask about his eye and was grateful for an excuse to delay the conversation as long as possible. He hadn’t decided how he wanted to answer yet. His instinct was to lie about it like he always did, but it was clear that Sam and Clint were friends and since Sam knew the truth, lying would be a risky bet. Peter also had the feeling that Hawkeye would be a difficult person to lie to.

At some point, Peter must have drifted off because the next thing he knew he was tumbling out of his seat after flinching away from the gentle hand that was shaking him awake. He hit the floor of the jet hard and took a moment before to collect himself and realize and look up at Mr. Barton to realize where he was. The man’s face was fairly neutral, as he offered a sincere, “sorry,” but there was an undercurrent of concern. Peter blushed, tried to put an easy smile on his face, and half-heartedly joked, “I promise I’m not that easy to take down in a fight,” but his joke fell flat and Clint didn’t laugh.

“Right. I hate to wake you, but we are here and as much as I wanted to let you sleep since you look like you haven’t properly slept in ages, I didn’t want to leave you out here to do it on a plane. And I imagine you are pretty hungry anyway. Ready to go inside and meet the family?” Clint asked, reaching a hand down and helping Peter to his feet.

“Sure,” Peter said, feeling a flutter of nerves resurface for the first time since Mr. Barton had shown up to get him in New York. 

Turns out Peter had nothing to worry about, Clint’s family were some of the nicest people he had ever met and Peter felt himself completely at ease and at home for the first time in months. After introductions, Laura, Clint’s wife, had handed him some napkins and asked him to help Cooper, their oldest son, set the table. Peter appreciated being given the task. It made him feel more useful and less like an intrusion, though he suspected that was exactly Mrs. Barton’s intention. Cooper was close to Peter’s age, or his pre-snap age, and Peter suspected that they could be good friends if he weren’t trying so hard to maintain the illusion of adulthood.

Dinner was fantastic. A home-cooked meal and a table full of chatter and laughter and teasing and spilled juice that was immediately cleaned up, no stress or yelling. It was the kind of good chaos that Peter never really had even when he’d still kind of had a family. It was over before he knew it and Cooper was showing him upstairs, pointing out the bathroom and everyone else’s rooms before leaving Peter in front of the guest room. Peter would have continued to talk with Cooper, he had been really friendly during the brief tour and seemed genuinely happy to meet Peter, but the silence of his spider-sense had him falling asleep on his feet. He told himself that he would better befriend Cooper tomorrow and then quickly changed and collapsed into bed.

* * *

Peter jolted awake a few hours later, breathing heavily but otherwise not making a sound, the same way he’d woken from his nightmares every night since his return. He was disoriented from his dream so it took him a moment to realize that there was someone watching him. When he finally got his breathing under control enough that he was sure he wouldn’t dissolve into panic, he looked up and saw Mr. Barton leaning up against his doorframe looking casual, but somehow still concerned.

“I hope I didn’t wake you, I’m sorry for bothering you,” Peter immediately apologized. It had become second nature to him now to apologize whether he’d done something or not.

“You didn’t wake me up kid, you didn’t make a sound at all. Call it dad-instincts, but I came to check on you and saw you were having a pretty rough nightmare,” Clint explained, “I was trying to decide if I should wake you or if that would make it worse but before I could do anything, you woke yourself up. I’ve got to be honest, it was almost more terrifying to see you screaming silently than it would’ve been to hear that you were having a nightmare,” he confessed. “I guess I can’t really talk though. I’ve had enough alien-battle induced nightmares to last a lifetime, and I imagine disappearing and reappearing without any idea what had happened was probably right up there on there next to the whole alien-battle thing on the nightmare-inducing-trauma list”

Without thinking, Peter confessed, “I wish I hadn’t, but I knew exactly what was happening when we were dusted. I’d watched everyone else disappear and then felt myself start to disintegrate and I knew. I’d watched them vanish and it had seemed to happen in an instant but it felt like it took an eternity for me to fully disappear. The pain was awful, but it was more agonizing just to know that I was dying during those moments and being unable to do anything.”

Clint just stared at him for a moment, trying to process what the kid had just admitted to. “Christ, kid,” he breathed out, trying to keep from sounding completely horrified and upsetting Peter any further. “That sounds horrific. No wonder you are having nightmares. I can’t begin to know what that was like for you, but I am pretty well versed in trauma in general, so if you ever want to talk about it, or just want to sit next to someone and be reminded that you are real and alive right now, I’m here.” Clint’s tone wasn’t pitying or overly concerned, it was just understanding. 

Peter appreciated that Mr. Barton wasn’t treating him like some messed up kid who needed to be fixed. He understood that the nightmare’s were an inevitable part of the job and was just empathizing with Peter without overstepping. 

“Thanks. Maybe at some point, but I don’t think it would help much right now,” Peter tried to deny the offer, but in his post-nightmare state, his voice lacked any real conviction. Clint picked up on this and figured he could press a bit.

“You know Sam, he isn’t just an Avenger,” Clint continued to keep his tone calm and casual, “He is actually a licensed therapist. Which basically just means he’s a really good listener. And before you take that the wrong way, and think I am saying you are messed up or something, we all need therapy. That is just a fact so no need to make a big deal out of it. I talk to him all of the time. Just as a friend. Honestly, I forget about the whole therapist thing half the time because he is just a good listener. Just something to think about.”

Peter’s exhaustion was making him more open then normal. Fighting off the post-nightmare anxiety attack had taken it out of him and he was particularly vulnerable because of the weird sense of safety he felt around Clint. That was the only explanation for why he said what he said.

“Mr. Barton,” Peter looked up from his lap and directly into the man’s eyes for the first time.

“Yeah?” Clint replied, keeping his posture relaxed and his tone calm.

“I think I might need help,” the second the words left his mouth, Peter felt like he could breathe just a little bit easier. This wasn’t about Matt or May or even Mr. Stark. This was about Peter Parker and Spider-man being overwhelmed after fighting aliens and dying and then losing five years of his life and now feeling lost. 

Clint nodded his head calmly though it took all of his spy training to keep his emotions in check, “Okay, how about I give Sam a call in the morning? He loves the farm and I already told him that it’s about time for him to visit. The three of us could sit down and try and help you figure some of this stuff out, or just you and Sam, or you and me, or we could find someone else. Whatever would make you comfortable,” Clint offered.

“I think I’m okay with Sam. Just talking to you two. I’m not trying to make a big deal out of anything, just some professional career-related advice, you know?” These were Avenger-related nightmare’s that Peter was having so it didn’t seem wrong or overwhelming to just talk to a couple Avengers about it and see if they had any trade-secrets. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not suddenly get better at grammar during my hiatus and once again feel like there are a lot of tense issues in this chapter but decided it was best to just post it and get over the mental block and back to just writing again. Once I finish the story, I may go back and fix some things so if anyone notices anything glaring or has any constructive criticism to offer, I would love to hear it!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr as aggieadventuress if you want to yell at me, if you are good at grammar and would like to share whatever the secrets are (please, I'm serious, I need help), or if you just want to be friends!


	14. At the Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up regretting some of his confessions to Clint, but at the end of that say, maybe it was the right choice? And just because he asks for advice doesn’t mean he has to take it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...I *did* promise is wouldn’t be another three months, and it technically hasn’t been a full three. Not the point though.
> 
> I am seriously so grateful for everyone whose been reading, commenting, and supporting this story. I don’t deserve y’all. I don’t have a great reason for why it’s taking so long right now, I think inspiration has just been coming in waves and I am trying not to force something that doesn’t feel right. I still want to reassure you guys that I will finish this story. Soon. Soonish. I promise!
> 
> Anyway, here is a very long chapter as a belated Christmas/holiday present (though it’s not really the most cheerful) and to wish everyone a happy new year!

Peter woke up the next morning feeling groggy and hungover; not that he knew what it was like to be hungover, but he imagined this was what it felt like. It took him a few moments to remember where he was and to realize why he felt so off. For one thing, he remembered having a nightmare, but was shocked to realize he had actually fallen back asleep afterward and that it was now the following morning. His body was still aching from Matt’s punishment and the alien battle, but he didn’t feel as much of his usual post-nightmare soreness either. The second thing that was messing him up was what could only be described as an ‘emotional hangover’. He felt drained just from the brief confessions he’d made last night in his post-nightmare haze. In the light of the morning, he was embarrassed that he had appeared so weak in front of a hero like Hawkeye. He had been vulnerable and childish and had asked for help he wasn’t sure he wanted, and he didn’t know how he felt about that decision now that it was morning and his pain wasn’t as raw. 

Before he could dwell too much on the implications of his late-night confessions, his phone started vibrating. He blindly grabbed for it before the noise could alert anyone else in the house, looked down at the name on the screen, and almost dropped his phone when he saw “Mr. Stark” flashing across the screen. He was feeling a little bit more stable now that he was out of the city and away from Matt, but that didn’t mean he was ready to talk to his mentor. He had been avoiding the man for weeks now, and with good reason, why would he choose today to call? He spent long enough panicking that the call went to voicemail. A moment later a text came through.

_Mr. Stark: hey kid, call me back. Your aunt just asked me how long you’d be with me at the tower and I’m going to give you a chance to give me a good reason to lie for you before I decide to bust you or not._

Peter’s heart nearly stopped when he read the message. He had no choice but to call the man back now, regardless of everything else that was going on. He hadn’t thought May would care enough to check up on his lie and now that she had, he was going to have to come up with a couple more really good ones to get the man to go along with his story. He took a few deep, calming breaths and then dialed. 

The phone barely rang before Tony answered. 

“Well, look who it is. The ever-elusive spider-kid.” Tony’s voice was teasing, but he sounded genuinely relieved to hear from Peter.

“Hey Mr. St-Stark,” Peter stuttered out, embarrassed by the hoarseness in his voice and how unsteady he sounded. Tony immediately noticed.

“You okay kid? Are you somewhere safe?” Tony immediately got more serious.

“I’m fine. I’m safe. Sorry, just woke up, that’s all,” Peter tried to play it off. He wasn’t really lying though, for the first time in a long time, he actually was safe.

“I’m glad to hear you are okay, and safe, even though you aren’t where you are supposed to be. Mind telling me why it is that you are in Iowa of your own volition? On a farm, nonetheless. I’m assuming with birdbrain since the GPS on your phone is getting scrambled and I can’t pick up your exact location. He’s the only super spy I know with cloaking devices around a farm in Iowa,” Tony asked.

For a moment, Peter’s own shallow breaths were the only sound on the otherwise silent call. He was panicking a bit at the realization that Tony knew where he was. He couldn’t lie and claim to be with Ned, and he wasn’t sure how willing Mr. Barton would be to lie for him so he would have to tread very carefully now. 

“Umm, I-I can explain,” he stuttered.

“I’d love to hear it,” Tony said, not unkindly. 

“I, um...” Peter wasn’t sure where he was going with this and in his panic, bits of truth started to get past his defenses, “I needed a break. I’m sorry, I just needed to get out of the city, somewhere low stress and safe so I could breath. Sorry.” His answer was fine except the one major mistake he made; using the word ‘safe.’ Mr. Stark had planted the word in his head earlier and now it had just slipped out, and obviously the other man noticed.

“Safe,” he repeated back to Peter. “Kid, I am really happy to hear you are somewhere safe, and I’m not mad, I promise. I always want to hear that you are safe. But is there any reason that you weren’t safe in the city? Or that May thinks you are with me? Or that you’ve been ignoring me for the past few months?” Tony asked, his tone measured but a hint of anxiety coming through. 

Peter paused to process the myriad of questions. 

“I don’t even know how to start to answer that,” he finally said, a hint of desperation coloring his voice. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to overwhelm you. Why don’t you start with why you told May you were with me? Not that I wouldn’t love it if you were actually with me, but I’ll save the ‘you’ve been avoiding me ‘question for later,” Tony said calmly. 

Peter wracked his brain for an answer that wouldn’t just cause more questions and couldn’t come up with anything practical. Once again, he settled for a bit of truth, “It’s complicated. She can’t know why I left, and she doesn’t really know Mr. Barton, so I just needed to tell her something. I don’t want to worry her. She’s been through enough and I need her to just be happy. I can’t burden her with anything else,” he said quietly.

Tony was the one to pause now, and when he finally spoke, his voice was soft, “Peter, you know that your Aunt wants to know that you are safe. She always wants what is best for you and you could never be a burden. To her, or to me, I hope you know that. I know something is going on. I’ve been feeling uneasy since you showed up to the tower half-starved and bruised back in September. It is hurting me to think that you are struggling and I can’t help. Please, let me help,” Tony was pleading at this point. Peter hadn’t been expecting to have this conversation with anyone yet. He thought he had more time to figure out what to tell his mentor and needed to end this current line of questioning quickly. He was feeling vulnerable from his nightmares and didn’t have his guard up enough to fend Tony off very well. He had resigned himself to needing help last night but that did not extend to his ‘Peter’ problems. It was a strictly Spider-man related revelation.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter’s voice came out almost as a whine, “I...” He didn’t know where he was going with this, “I just need a bit more time to figure things out. I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself.” That was the wrong answer apparently.

“Pete, I never said you can’t take care of yourself, what I want you to hear is that you don’t have to. You’re really freaking me out kid. Let me come to Iowa to talk, or I can come get you and come back here. I’ve been dying to get you to the cabin and Morgan would love to see you. Whatever is going on, we can figure it out. Please?” Hearing Tony Stark say ‘please’ almost broke him. Peter wanted to accept the offer, to let Tony swoop in and fix everything, but he had to remind himself that he was doing this for May, and she deserved to be happy. He could handle it. He’d only told Mr. Baton he needed help with super-hero things, not Peter Parker things, and he needed to keep it that way to protect May.

“I can’t. Not right now. Can you give me a few days to get my head on straight and then we can talk?” That was the best Peter could do, buy himself some time and hope he came up with a better lie or that he would somehow be ready to tell the truth at that point.

Tony sighed, “I don’t want to and I’m not sure that I am okay with it, but you are with Clint and as reluctant as I am to admit it, I trust him. Right now, the most important thing is that you are safe. We can figure everything else out. Just…please…let me help you figure out whatever ‘this’ is when you’re ready,” the man conceded.

Peter nodded, feeling temporarily relieved, before realizing that Tony couldn’t see his face, “Okay,” he said, “And thank you. And I’m sorry for worrying you. And for lying to May and putting you in that tough spot. I’m sor-” before he could continue to apologize, Tony interrupted him.

“Peter,” Tony said, “You don’t need to apologize, I just care that you are okay right now. And I understand needing a little bit of time. You have been through a lot in these past few months, hell, these past few years, so nobody blames you for that. If you told your aunt that, I know that she would understand too…” Tony tried one more time. 

“I just can’t right now,” Peter was quick to respond. 

“Okay. I don’t like lying to her, but I will cover for you for a few days if you promise to call me if you need something and tell me if you are in any danger,” Tony clearly was still thinking about the ‘safe’ comment that had unintentionally slipped past his defenses earlier, “I know you are with Clint, and he is a very capable super spy and all that, but can you just go ahead and promise me that you will call if for some reason you are no longer safe where you are at?” Tony was clearly uneasy with letting Peter off the hook right now but was trying to give the kid the space he needed while he figured out what to do.

“I’m safe here. I promise,” Peter assured his mentor, “And I should really get up and get something to eat. I went to bed pretty early last night and don’t want to be rude to the Bartons….”

“Okay, you know I am never going to protest you eating,” Tony said, “In fact, I expect you to go eat a very impressively sized breakfast. Clint knows about your metabolism so don’t even try to hide it. I remember how thin you were at the beginning of the school year and I don’t want a repeat of that.”

“Sure. Can do,” Peter would have agreed to anything to get off the phone and continue to delay the inventible conversation that he could feel was coming, “Thanks for covering for me Mr. Stark. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I miss you kid,” Tony said softly, “I’ll talk to you soon. Call me if you need anything.” And with that, Peter ended the call.

—

Peter sat on his bed for a few minutes composing himself after his conversation with Tony. He hadn’t been prepared for that this morning and combined with everything else, he felt like he was teetering on the verge of panic. Fortunately, he had been in this state of internal chaos pretty much constantly over the last few months and was used to calming himself down just enough to function. He did some breathing exercises and, once he was more under control, quietly got up and made his way across the hall to the bathroom to brush his teeth and splash some cold water on his face. Finally, he felt ready to face the day and made his way down to the kitchen. Despite his late night and long phone call, it was still pretty early, and Mr. Barton and his wife were the only two in the kitchen when Peter made it downstairs. 

He hesitated, not wanting to interrupt the picturesque moment of the two of them sharing a quiet cup of coffee together at the breakfast table, but before he could decide if he should go back upstairs, Mr. Barton caught sight of him. He’d shouldn’t have expected anything less, the man was a spy after all.

“Hey Peter. Morning. Come on and grab a seat,” he gestured to a chair next to him and Peter moved to take it. Just as he was sitting down, Mrs. Barton stood up, “Can I get you a cup of coffee Peter,” Peter moved to stand back up, feeling uncomfortable with the idea of being rude and of Mrs. Barton going out of her way to serve him. “No Peter, sit down,” she said firmly before he had fully made his way out of his seat. He immediately sunk back into his chair, recognizing her firm tone as the same no-nonsense tone that May used with him. It wasn’t unkind, but it left no room to for questioning. He knew when he had been overruled and knew not to fight it.

He wasn’t allowed to have coffee, but he obviously couldn’t say that out loud because it would make him sound like an absolute child and he didn’t need that. “No thanks, I’ll just stick to water this morning ma’am.”

“Laura. None of this ‘ma’am’ nonsense,” Mrs. Barton gently chided him while she bustled around, filling a plate with eggs and bacon and pulling what appeared to be freshly baked biscuits from the oven. He watched in awe as she gracefully moved about the kitchen before setting a full plate and a glass of orange juice down in front of him.

“Thank you ma’…Laura,” he corrected himself at the last minute and she smiled at him.

“Of course. Now eat. I need to go get the kids up and ready for school,” she said, and Peter was left alone at the table with Clint. Peter all of the sudden felt nervous about the discussion that he had asked to have last night and wondered if he just didn’t mention anything, if Clint would forget about it.

He had no such luck, the other man broke the silence casually, “So, how did you end up sleeping the rest of the night?” Peter blushed at the reminder of his embarrassing nightmare.

“Fine. Great, I mean. Thanks again for letting me come visit. The quiet of the farm is really peaceful,” he said.

“Of course. Happy to have you here,” Clint waved off his thanks. “So,” the older man continued, “I talked to Sam this morning. He was thinking about coming out to the farm for a few days like I’d mentioned, so I think he will be here on Wednesday if that is okay. No pressure, and I didn’t want to rush you, but I did just want you to know.”

Peter nodded, not trusting himself to speak without his voice cracking and betraying how anxious that idea was making him. 

Clint continued, “I also got a very vague message from Tony just before you came down, telling me he knew you were here and that I needed to make sure you were eating enough. And that he would hold me personally responsible if you came to any harm while here,” Clint raised an eyebrow at the last bit and Peter choked on his juice, nearly spitting it out across the table. He hadn’t thought Mr. Stark would have followed up with Mr. Barton so quickly. He thought he had more time to figure out how to get his story straight. Clint clapped him on the back while Peter coughed, and when he finally caught his breath, he thanked the man, blushing furiously.

Clint laughed, “No worries kid. Tony’s a bit of a mother hen like that so I don’t take his threats personally. I take it you told him you were here? Or is he tracking you or something?”

The blush in his cheeks just deepened at the implication that Tony was ‘mothering’ him. “He called this morning.” Peter supplied. He didn’t need to mention his lie to his aunt and that Tony was, in fact, tracking him, if Tony hadn’t already ratted him out. 

“Hmm,” Clint hummed in acknowledgement. “Well, I promised him he had nothing to worry about. This place is about as safe as it gets. The kids’ll be down in a few minutes, so feel free to finish up and escape outside for a bit to avoid the chaos, or stay put and enjoy it,” Clint’s offered. He stood, patting Peter on the shoulder before heading into the living room.

Peter looked down at his half-eaten breakfast, suddenly no longer hungry as his stomach was twisting in knots. This had been a huge mistake and he was realizing how dangerously close his lies were to falling apart. He had just wanted to get away from Matt for a few days and now Mr. Stark was suspicious, a therapist was coming to talk to him, and he was pretty sure all of the Avengers were on the verge of finding out his “true” age. He’d been lucky to this point that Mr. Stark was retired and not as involved so the others hadn’t figured things out already, but his luck was about to run out. If only he’d kept his mouth shut on the rooftop yesterday, none of this would be happening. He forced the rest of his breakfast down quickly, despite his rising nausea, realizing he was too riled up to sit through breakfast with the rest of the Barton’s, and washed his plate before slipping out the back door. Maybe a walk in the early morning sun would help clear his head.

—

No amount of walking gave Peter the answers he was looking for, but he found that there was plenty to distract himself with over the next few days. Mr. Barton didn’t bring up the nightmare again and Peter was able to fall into a peaceful rhythm of farm life and found that, as long as he kept busy during the day, he could keep his panic at bay. There were lots of chores around the farm and, once Peter had thoroughly convinced Laura that he enjoyed helping, she had been happy to give him things to do. He spent a lot of time with Cooper as well, talking about movies or comic books while they cleaned up the barn or did the dishes. He worked hard to try and act mature but found that he could get carried away in spirited discussions about his favorite topics and had to reign himself in a few times. It was easy to talk to Cooper once he realized the other boy had been dusted too and they both had a lot of pop-culture they had missed and were just now catching up on. He watched movies with the Barton’s in the evenings, joining in on card games or a round of Mario kart as well. Altogether, Peter felt more relaxed than he had been since before the snap.

Nighttime was a different story, as that was when Peter’s mind was free to cycle through all the possible outcomes of his conversation with Sam and Mr. Stark inevitably finding out the truth about Matt and about all of Peter’s lies. He found that if he exhausted himself well enough during the day, he would eventually be able to slip off and manage at least a few hours of sleep before being awoken by a nightmare. 

—

Wednesday came sooner than he would have liked, and before Peter knew it, he found himself seated on the front porch with Sam and Clint, engaging in some light small talk before Sam turned the conversation back to Peter’s request to talk. He had thought hard about what he should do at this point. Sam already knew about Matt unfortunately, and though he was sure that neither man would push him if he said he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to talk anymore, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to control any sort of speculation if he didn’t try and manage the story himself. He really did want some advice about combatting his nightmares about Titan, and if he could focus in on that as his biggest problem, maybe he could distract them from the other things.

There was a natural lull in the conversation once Sam and Clint finished catching up on some lighthearted things. There was a moment of comfortable silence before Sam turned his attention to Peter. “So,” he started, “Clint didn’t say much, but he mentioned you wanted some advice on the less-than-desirable occupational hazards of saving the world.” Sam’s tone was lighthearted, almost joking, and it immediately put Peter at ease. “You could say that,” Peter replied. “Just looking for some tips on the whole ‘sleeping’ thing,” Peter matched Sam’s indirect approach. “Ah, the ever-evasive sleep,” Sam started before getting a bit more serious, “I don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you that just talking about it helps. Bleeding off the poison and whatnot. If you wouldn’t mind, I think telling someone what is happening in your nightmares might be a good first pass,” Sam sensed that Peter was uncomfortable and ready to brush off the suggestion so he continued without giving him the chance to reply, “And just for the record, it’s something we all have to do. If you ever spend any time at the tower, I am sure you will find Steve or Natasha or myself, any of us really, awake sometime in the middle of the night, just talking it out with someone so we can go back to sleep. It’s completely normal. Part of the gig.”

Peter did feel comforted by that and took a deep breath before starting his story. The older heros stayed silent while Peter explained some of what he was struggling with, which he was grateful for. If at any point they had stopped him to comment or ask a question, Peter was sure he wouldn't have been able to start again. He had fully intended just to talk about Titan and getting dusted, and he did…to start with, but quickly he found himself confessing his nightmares of being trapped under the building during his fight with the Vulture and crashing the plane as well. He had been staring into his lap while he spoke, and when he finally stopped.

Sam was the one to break the silence. “Peter, thanks for trusting us. Honestly, that really is the hardest part. And though I don’t think any of us would lie to you and say that it will all just go away after a while; it does get easier.” Clint nodded as Sam spoke. “I know we usually talk through things as a team after a particularly brutal fight and it helps everyone to get a bit of closure, remind each other that we aren’t alone. If you let your brain process things while you are awake, before your subconscious can take a crack at it, you can have some control over it. It doesn’t sound like you’ve had a chance to do that up until now.” 

Peter nodded into his lap, still afraid to look up. He felt exhausted after baring his fears like that, but Sam was right in that they felt a little more manageable now that they were out in the open. He definitely didn’t think the dreams would stop but saying them aloud had reminded him that he’d made it through all of it. As terrifying as things had been in the moment, his brain knew that he’d survived it all. Sam continued to offer some suggestion on how he could help to clear his mind before sleeping and how some of the other Avengers dealt with their ‘trauma’ as well. Eventually, Peter realized that he had looked up at some point and was meeting the other man’s eye and nodding along with him. 

“Does any of that sound helpful,” Sam finally asked, once he was done. Peter nodded, and he genuinely meant it.

“I’m glad,” Sam said and smiled, and then his smile faded some and he got a bit more serious again, “I know you wanted to talk about Spider-man, and I am happy to do that, but would you mind if I asked about the other situation that you mentioned on the roof? The hero-ing gig can be hard, and I don’t want to overstep, but I suspect that some of what is contributing to your nightmares could be not feeling safe in the place you are sleeping.” Sam spoke gently, not accusing or pityingly, but very calm.

Peter didn’t know how to respond. He saw the neutral expression on Clint and Sam’s face, neither looked judgmental or even curious, they were both just listening. His mouth felt dry as he opened it to speak, but he closed it again when he realized he had nothing to say. 

“Peter,” Sam continued, “I’m not trying to make you talk about anything you don’t want to. I am just guessing you might feel a little better if you get some of what is going on there off your chest too.”

Somehow that was all it took, and the next thing Peter knew, he was talking again. Sam already knew a bit, and he had enough awareness left to omit the bits and pieces that would give away his age, but it felt good to finally admit to the interactions he'd had with Matt and to get some of the things the other man had said to him off his chest. His gaze had fallen back to his laps as he spoke and when he finally finished his story, telling of the last altercations he'd had that Sam had gotten to see the remnants of, he trailed off, suddenly realizing the extent of what he had said and feeling afraid to look up.

"Kid," Clint started softly, "none of that is okay. That's criminal, he is assaulting you. You can't stay there."

Peter nodded his head, eyes still downcast, knowing in the end that the man was right but not really accepting the need to leave yet either.

"Peter," Sam spoke next, "This is a lot to handle on top of everything with Thanos. I can't imagine what it has been like for you, but all of us are here for whatever you need. Clint's right though, you have to get out of that apartment. We can talk about filing charges and what should happen with Matt later, but there is no reason for you to get hurt while you try to figure out the next steps or wait to get an apartment or a better job for yourself. I am sure you could stay here with Clint and Laura if you wanted," Sam paused and Clint jumped in, "of course, we'd love to have you!" Sam nodded and continued, "Or you could stay at the tower if you wanted. I'd love to have you around and the rest of the team would too," Sam added, then paused before hesitantly continuing, "I think Tony would pay for an apartment, or help with one, or give you a raise as well. I know he'd be overjoyed if you would opt to move to the lake house and live there forever to be honest,” Clint chuckled quietly at this comment and Sam couldn’t help the small smile on his own face, “but I think he would understand you wanting to get out on your own as an adult for a bit too. Whatever you want, he would help. The way he talks about you, we can all tell he really...cares about you." Sam stopped himself from saying "he really loves you" at the last minute because he realized that now was not the right time to get into that with Peter when the kid clearly had issues accepting affection.

Peter finally lifted his gaze to appraise the two heros before him and try to get his head around what they had said and what they had offered. He scrutinized their faces and saw nothing but sincerity in their expressions. They had both stopped talking to give him a moment to process.

This was a lot to take in. After the past few months, Peter couldn't bear the thought of being such a burden and was certain that he was one. He really just needed to get a job and an apartment of his own. He was pretty sure he could fish out his birth certificate, which would show he was an adult, and get an extra job. His internship definitely paid but it just wasn't enough to live off of. He knew that was because Tony wasn't expecting him to live off of it and he also knew that if he mentioned he needed money, Tony would pay him just about any amount he wanted, but he didn't want to take advantage of his mentor and he certainly didn't think he would be able to answer any of the questions that the man would inevitably ask. 

He knew how bad things were though, and the other men were right, he couldn't stay there much longer, but there was no way he could move in with the Avengers or something without some details about his age coming out, and if that happened, he was sure the authorities would get involved and May would get hurt. He needed a better plan, and a little bit more time. Now that he had gotten everything off his chest (mostly everything), he really did feel lighter and like he could face going home again. Maybe if he sat down with May and really talked to her, they could work things out. And maybe he could make things work with Matt too. He knew he could be difficult sometimes and he really wanted May to be happy, and he thought Matt did too, so maybe they could figure out how to coexist for her sake.

He was coming around to the idea that, if he tried hard enough, he could make things work at home. Now that he finally felt calm and safe, he realized he was being a bit dramatic with the whole "running away" "I'm getting beat up by my aunt's boyfriend" thing and there was no need to further involve the Avengers and cause more trouble. He hadn’t meant to tell them about Matt to begin with, he had just wanted to get away, which he had. It was time to go home now. He had a feeling that Sam and Clint wouldn't see things his way just yet, but in the moment, he was sure he was right.

Before Peter could vocalize what, he had settled on, Sam seemed to read his mind and started talking again. "Peter," his tone was gentle but serious, "it doesn't matter how old you are or what super powers you have, it is not okay for a person who is supposed to care for you to hurt you." Peter sucked in a breath, his stomach doing flips as Sam's soft words seemed to pierce through him. "Even if you weren't a superhero and we had never met before, if I ran into you on the streets and you told me what was going on, I would still say the same thing. You can't stay there, and we want to help."

Peter took a deep breath, quashing the tide of emotions that was threatening to overwhelm him. He wanted to really believe Sam's words. He wanted to nod his head and let his tears finally fall. To admit to them all that he wasn't entirely an adult and was still trying to figure out how to finish high school. Most importantly, he just really wanted to call Tony, tell him everything, and let the man swoop in and save him and make everything else go away. But he couldn't do that. He had no idea what would happen to May if he admitted what was going on. 

Peter looked up and met Sam’s eyes. He probably couldn’t back track enough for them to understand why he had to go back, but he could convince them to let him go collect his things.

“I will move out,” he said, shocked that his voice didn’t waver in the face of his lie. “I will go back and get my stuff, talk to my aunt to make sure she will be okay and to give her some piece of mind, and then I will go stay with a friend,” Peter tried to sound certain of himself, he could already see that they wanted to challenge him and knew he couldn’t back down.

“What about one of us comes back with you?” Clint offered, his voice light but Peter could see the uncertainty and worry in his eyes. 

“That’s okay, I need to talk to May and I need to do it alone. I appreciate how much you guys are willing to do for me, but I’m an adult and I can do this on my own.” Peter said it with conviction. They couldn’t come with him, they could never meet May, or learn how old he was, or god forbid, meet Matt. And he couldn’t let them make him come back to the tower, because if he did, Mr. Stark would find out for certain and that couldn’t happen either. He couldn’t have explained why he felt so strongly about keeping his secret at this point, but it was the only thing he had control over right now, so he was going to hold on to it. Deep down, he knew that his story was falling apart, and he wouldn’t be able to hold everyone off forever, but he couldn’t face that truth right now.

“I’d really rather someone came with you kid,” Sam tried this time, “not to interfere, we could even wait outside, but just to make sure you were safe.”

That wasn’t going to work though; he couldn’t let them win. “I’m not a kid,” Peter said harshly, not intending to sound so aggressive but also knowing that it was necessary, ”It’s my decision and I really appreciate you guys, but I am Spider-man, I am not going to be in danger. I can take care of myself if I need to.”

Sam didn’t seem like he wanted to budge and tried one more time, “It’s not about whether you can defend yourself Peter, it is about whether or not you will.” Peter felt like he had been punched in the face, those words hit too close to home. He knew in his heart that he couldn’t defend himself. He froze whenever Matt was around and he could never hurt May, but Sam couldn’t know that.

“No.” He said firmly, trying to be direct and not leave any more room for argument. “Just me. I’ll text you when I get to my friends though, does that work.”

Clint and Sam saw that he was not going to budge on it, but reluctantly they both nodded. That problem solved, Peter just needed a way home. 

“Do you think one of you could maybe drive me to the airport?” Peter asked.

“You can take the jet kid. It flies itself. It’ll drop you at the tower if that’s okay. It’s bound to be closer to…home,” Clint hesitated on that last word, “than the airport.” 

“Thanks, but I don’t want to inconvenience Sam, he just got here” Peter said, wondering if the jet was just a ploy to get him to let Sam go with him. 

“I’m going to hang around the farm a bit kid, you’re fine,” Sam said, and Peter was relieved to know that they were going to let him go on his own.

It didn’t take long for Peter to gather his things and head out to the jet. He was surprised that Sam and Clint didn’t try to stop him again, he could see in their faces that they wanted to but was grateful. If they’d pushed him much further, he might have caved, and he had survived too much to back down now. He may not be able to protect himself, but he would protect May, no matter the cost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will our poor boy ever really learn??? Maybe. Probably. Just not before i cause a *little* more angst. I’m sorry. I have no idea why I keep hurting him.
> 
> This is actually one of my favorite chapters because I love dad Clint and therapist Sam and don’t feel like they get enough appreciation. If you’ve stuck with me for this long I promise the comfort we’ve all been waiting for is right around the corner and there will be lots more Tony in the next chapter :)
> 
> *my usual disclaimer about this being unbetaed and a bit grammatically chaotic, but I’m working on being less self-critical*


End file.
